Inflection Point
by Jabyar
Summary: Even after Sealview, she was not this nakedly raw, this transparently vulnerable. From this he concludes: So this was worse than Sealview.
1. Chapter 1

Superficially, the place looks the same as he left it, but there's a palpable stillness to the air, an absence of bustle. Stationhouse life has been on hold.

The horizontal blinds rustle predictably as he enters the dusty, dark-paneled office with a soft knock to announce himself. He's not expected, but his presence is not surprising, either.

"Elliot."

It's been nearly two years, but he dispenses with greetings. "I read what happened."

"And you came to see her."

He waits a beat. "Is she here?"

So does Cragen. "Do you think it's a good idea?"

He shifts on his feet. "Captain, is she here?"

"You just missed her. She came to give her statement. She and Brian just left about five minutes ago."

Pause. "Cassidy?"

"They've been seeing each other."

He narrows his eyes, but keeps his thoughts to himself. "I thought I saw him on my way in. But he was by himself."

"Maybe he went to bring the car around."

"So where's she? I didn't see her waiting."

"I don't know."

"So she might still be in the building?"

Cragen concedes. "She might be. Or she might've slipped out the side exit."

In his head: _That dolt let her walk out of here by herself, a day after a vicious assault? _

Out loud: "How's she doing?"

His former boss sighs, hesitates.

So he answers his own question. "Not well."

"I wouldn't quite characterize it that way."

He's careful to keep any sarcasm out of his voice. "Then how would you characterize it?"

"I would say, she _is_ doing well, considering the hell she's been through."

"But?"

Sigh. "But. _But_. The hell she was put through was considerable."

He's crestfallen by this answer. He'd held out hope the media had embellished. "So she's not doing well."

"She's in shock. More worried about the other victims than about herself."

He raises an eyebrow; he hadn't heard this part. "Other victims?"

"He killed a rookie trooper who threatened to check the backseat where she was tied up. He raped and tortured his lawyer's mother in front of her. Forced her to watch."

He swallows. "Jesus."

Cragen looks him in the eye. "It was bad, Elliot."

He forces down a lump. "Did he… did he rape her?"

"No."

His relief is obviously written on his face, because Cragen feels the need to add, "But it was still… _bad."_

"Of course it was."

"No, I mean, you should…. prepare yourself. She was tortured. And I don't just mean psychologically."

"But he didn't –"

"Look, it's not right of me to discuss this with you. If she wants to talk to you, you should hear it from her."

"You won't have me arrested if I take a peak upstairs?"

Cragen sighs again, shoots him a warning glance. "No, as long as you promise to leave her alone if she doesn't want to see you."

* * *

He manages to make it to the second floor without running into any of his former colleagues. Depleted from days-straight of round-the-clock investigative work, they were dismissed the second Olivia left.

Though he thinks there's only a small chance she's here, he's careful not to barge when he opens the door.

Her back is to him when he comes in. She is planted, still as a statue, in front of the locker room's only full-length mirror, which faces the door directly. From such a vantage point, he knows she's had fair warning of his entrance and that he could not have possibly startled her, but she looks shaken by the intrusion, her body primed with what he recognizes as fight-or-flight adrenaline. He immediately wishes he could take back the moment; knock first, perhaps.

He traverses the short space between them with a light tread, his feet padding softly across the waxy floor. Partner of a dozen years or not, he has enough sense and experience not to barrel down on a woman who's just been through what she has. He doesn't pretend she's above the fray when it comes to trauma. Still, he has to restrain himself a little; the urge to scoop her up in his arms is powerful. He's never been so glad to see her.

Nothing has prepared him for her physical appearance: Left arm immobilized and useless in a sling, conspicuous stitches across her forehead, both juxtaposed against shiny clean hair, neatly combed and side-parted like a school girl's, the tips of which blanket the loose-fitting men's blue button-down she wears. All in, she bears the forlorn expression of a lost child. But as she looks him up and down, her shock at seeing him evident on her face, he suddenly questions how she will interpret his abrupt reappearance in her life. Its timing, its motivation. What will she read into it? Will she accuse him of wanting to coddle her in the aftermath of this event? Of only being interested in her when she's in a weakened state?

"Elliot."

Her voice is tired, strained, pained.

He can't control himself. "Liv," he blurts, his own voice cracking. "I'm so…. I'm just so glad to –"

"You heard what happened."

He slackens his neck in affirmation. No point in denying it. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay."

"Believe me when I say I wanted to see you so many times, I just couldn't face you."

"I tried to call you."

"I know, I know. I was too ashamed."

She takes a second to think about it. "Okay."

"But I'm here now."

"Because of what happened."

The words gush out of him like a spigot, unfiltered, unorganized, unproofread. He wants to just lay it all out there. "I had to see for myself that you were okay. I know you're probably pissed I'm doing this, showing up here like this, like maybe I'm barging into your life again at this convenient time to rescue you or something… but honestly, I hope you just accept… we had a twelve-year partnership and I never stopped caring about you and I couldn't just sit back and _not _see you after I heard what hap-"

To his astonishment, she waves a hand dismissively. "Elliot. Stop. Please. It's okay. I don't have the resources right now to overanalyze this."

She flashes him a sad, weary grin. It's an understanding between partners who have over a decade of foundation beneath them. _We're cool. Let's move on._

That's all he needs. He won't look a gift horse in the mouth. He takes a single stride forward and pulls her into a loose hug – he's mindful of injuries – and wraps his arms fully around her.

She disappears into his embrace. Without hesitation, reservation, trepidation. Even after a two-year gulf topped off by a four-day odyssey of unspeakable hell, she trusts him completely.

More so, even with only one good arm, she _clings_ to him. The honestly in her need touches him and also frightens him. Even after Sealview, she was not this nakedly raw, this transparently vulnerable. He never heard the full story, but he knew Sealview was bad. From this he concludes: _So this was worse than Sealview._

It's a data point. A piece of information that can help him navigate.

He pulls back to talk into her ear, pretends he's clueless about Cassidy. "Can I drive you home?"

He can't be sure, but he thinks she stiffens. "I'm staying at Brian's. He just went to bring the car around. I came up here to grab some stuff while I waited."

He wants to cluck his tongue, inhale sharply, do something to demonstrate his distaste. But he restrains himself. This is not about him. He has to show her he's not the possessive, brutish partner she might remember. He's also concerned about the more mundane implications of her statement: that her physical condition is bad enough as to preclude a walk of what can't be more than a block or two.

"So let me keep you company till he gets here."

She thinks about it. "Okay."

He smiles, looks down at the bundle of clothes she's collected from her locker, and how manual a process it'll be to one-handedly stuff them into her bag. He knows she'll refuse his help, so he instead preemptively grabs her tote bag from the floor, holds it wide open for her.

"Thanks," she says, and stuffs each garment in, one by one.

When she's done, he lays the bag down and gestures to the bench. "Let's sit."

She agrees without argument.

"I won't ask if you're okay, because I know you hate that."

"Thank you."

"Can I ask how you're feeling?" The question is delivered with deliberate cheekiness. He's betting she'll appreciate the levity as a reflection of his status as an old, familiar confidante; someone she can be herself around, like family. Because in his eyes, she _is _family.

She raises an amused eyebrow; his bet has paid off. "That's not the same thing as asking if I'm okay?"

"Not really," he says, with mock-pensiveness. "I'm figuring even you understand that you can be okay and not feel physically well at the same time. I want to know if you're feeling physically well. If you're in any pain."

"Yes, some," she admits.

In spite of his neat bit of logical framing, her candor still unnerves him.

He can't help the gush of worry that rushes up his throat, but he manages to keep his voice even. "Painkillers not strong enough?"

"I'm not on any."

"What?" He's genuinely shocked. "I'm sorry, I just thought…. You, uh, the broken wrist, you know…."

She glances down at her useless arm. "Yeah, there's that." She regards her lame limb like a bratty child she's being forced to babysit.

Suddenly he's desperate to know how badly she's been assaulted. He also knows he can't force her to tell him. "Why'd you refuse painkillers, Liv? No one thinks you're weak if you –"

"I didn't refuse them. Doctor wouldn't give me any."

"What are you talking about?" His voice is gruffer than he intended. In his head, he's already pummeling the insensitive intern who dared to judge her. "You don't have a history with prescription drugs."

But she looks at him, her eyes as beautiful as he remembers them, but also haunted, and infused with a pain that no drug can erase. "It, uh, it was a precaution."

"I don't understand."

Her pupils flood with spontaneous tears, and he watches as she struggles to contain them. He's devastated to have upset her. "I'm sorry," he starts, "I didn't mean to –"

"No, no, it's okay. I just meant, my system was already –" She is cut off by the buzzing of her phone from within her pocket, which causes her to jump out of her skin. "Sorry!" she exclaims, in reference to her frazzled overreaction, not to the interruption itself. Her voice is shrill with startle-reflex adrenaline. She musters to grab the odious device and thus put an end to the cacophony. She presses a button. "Brian?" She takes a deep breath, gathering herself, apparently so as not to alarm him. "Where are you?"

Elliot sits back, consciously instructs himself to keep his mouth shut and his expression neutral. He watches her face, trying to decipher the upshot of the conversation before she hangs up.

"Okay, that's okay," she's saying. Pause, and her eyes flicker to Elliot. "It's fine, I'll find my own way. You don't have to –" Pause. Exasperated sigh. "_Brian. _I'm not a baby. I'll get a cab. It's fine." Pause. "Okay, good. See you there, then."

She ends the call, and he notices that her fingers surreptitiously switch on the phone's silencer.

"How long have you been seeing him?"

"About eight months."

"I'm glad for you," he lies.

He senses she knows he's lying, but she takes the comment at face value. "Thank you."

"So… he's not coming?"

"He got called in."

He's scrupulously careful to keep any trace of a smirk from his face. "You didn't tell him I was here."

"He wouldn't have understood."

It's not quite the response he'd expected. He'd figured she'd ask, as only women can, _Why would he care if you're here? _He wants to read something into her statement. He wants it to mean _she _believes his presence is significant and meaningful to her; _not _that Brian might be irrationally jealous in a juvenile, misguided way. He wants her to realize Brian _should _be jealous. Because even if Elliot doesn't intend to act on his feelings – and his feelings are surely there, there's no denying it now – the emotional support he wants to provide, _needs _to provide, is reason enough for Brian to eventually feel marginalized.

_If_ Brian finds out. That's up to her.

"I know what you're thinking," she says.

"What am I thinking?"

"You're thinking, what kind of guy can't make it his business to give his injured girlfriend a ride home."

He grins. "Can't put anything past you, Detective."

She smiles wistfully, and this time, it's he who knows exactly what she's thinking: _Am I still a detective? What happens if they don't let me come back? _But before he has a chance to intercede, to reassure her, she abruptly snaps out of it, addresses the topic at hand. "Trust me, he feels terrible. But he feels more terrible about Tuesday."

"Tuesday?"

"He had to pull a double-shift at the last minute. We were supposed to get together."

He doesn't follow. "So what was Tuesday?"

She waits a beat, as if he's supposed to figure it out on his own. When it becomes evident that he won't, she explains, her voice hitching. "Lewis got me on Monday."

His whole body freezes, the full significance washing over him in a tidal wave. For a second, he actually feels sorry for Brian, before he promptly realizes at whom his sympathy ought to really be directed. He swallows guiltily. "Oh."


	2. Chapter 2

A half-hour after they've left the precinct, he's taken Olivia to their old haunting ground: a 24-hour diner with the world's best comfort food. It's across the street from the precinct, and they can linger there, they can order or not order, and no one will hassle them, try to hustle them out the door. She confesses it's the first she's been here since he left.

"Do you want to talk?"

"About you?" she replies brightly. "Sure. How's Kathy?"

She's testing him. She wants him to tell her that he's here to talk about her. She wants him to say it so that she can then remind him again how fine she is.

He decides to call her bluff. "Our divorce was finalized about six months ago."

She's obviously surprised. "Oh. I had no idea. I'm so sorry, Elliot."

"Don't be. I think it's for the best. We kept it together as long as we could. It wasn't acrimonious."

"How are the kids? Eli must be so big now."

His eyes light up at the mention of his little son. "He's doing great! Starting kindergarten in the fall, can you believe it?"

"Wow. No I can't. Little Eli, wow."

He waits for her to fill the silence, but he realizes she's waiting for him to continue. Four more kids to go, after all.

But he can't keep up the charade. "Liv," he starts awkwardly.

She senses the tremor to his voice, immediately moves to shut him down. "Please, El." There's desperation behind her plea. "Please, I don't want to talk about it. Please, not yet."

"I know," he says softly. "I know you don't. I wasn't… I wasn't going to ask you about it. It's not my business unless you want to tell me."

Her shoulders visibly relax, and she crumples back into the booth. "Thank you," she says sincerely. "I'm sorry I interrupted. What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say that I know I screwed up, bad."

"El –"

"No wait, just please hear me out."

She nods.

"And I know you must be angry. Furious, in fact. And I don't blame you. So the fact that you're not, or don't seem to be, it tells me something, Liv. Either that you're bottling it up, or that you're numb. I'm not trying to be arrogant about what my place was in your life, believe me, that's not what I'm presuming here. I'm just saying, after twelve years, you didn't deserve the sudden radio silence, and the fact that you're not more hostile, well, it's raising my eyebrows."

She's been listening intently, and now she seems to take an extra beat to process his comments. "Okay."

"So I want you to be honest with me, I want to know why you seem so… sanguine, so… forgiving. I _deserve_ your anger, Liv. You shouldn't forgive me so fast. That's not you."

"You're saying I'm one to hold a grudge?"

"I'm saying certain things are less forgivable than others. And I want your forgiveness, Liv, I do, but I also want to earn it."

She pushes out a breath. "El."

He looks at her expectantly.

But she just stares at him from across the table, her eyes searching for clarity, for how to interpret everything. She looks so drained.

And then she seems to come to a decision. "All right, fair enough. How long do I have to wait?"

"What do you mean?"

"How long do you think it'll take for you to earn it? A week? A month? Is this, like, a twelve-step process or something?"

"Liv, come on, don't –"

She looks him straight in the eye. "Because I gotta tell you, El, I don't think I have that kind of fortitude. I need you _today_, not tomorrow."

Flustered by such unbridled honesty, he manages to get out, "I don't know what to say."

"Well I know what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"That the attack must've done a number on me if I'm willing to admit I'm too emotionally depleted to stay mad at you."

She's as astute as ever, he'll give her that. "Something like that," he mumbles.

"Well, you're right. It's true."

"It is?"

"Well, partly."

"So what's the other part?"

She takes a sip of her tea, daintily lays it back down, as if the mug might shatter. "After you left, I was angry. For a long time."

She looks up at him, testing him.

"Go on," he encourages.

"I couldn't believe you'd left, without a word. It was like you vanished into thin air."

"I'm sor –"

"No, wait. After a few months, the anger wore off. Life went on. I started to think about it with fresh eyes, a fresh attitude, not tainted with emotion. And I tried to put myself in your shoes. I tried to imagine how I'd be if I killed a teenager. Would I be able to face you? Or would I retreat into myself, close myself off? I finally realized this: I would've done the same thing you did."

A small part of him crumbles. "No, you wouldn't have. You were always a lot more emotionally mature than I was."

She scoffs. "Emotionally mature? Ha!"

"Liv, come on. You are."

"Elliot, you didn't kill that girl for no reason. She was in an irrational state and was waving a gun around."

"I still didn't have to kill her."

"She _wasn't_ innocent."

"Yes, she was."

"She'd just killed two people."

Taken aback by the unexpected side she's taking in this now-academic argument, he retorts bitterly, "One of them was the prince who'd raped and murdered her mother."

But as he opens his mouth to further drive his point home, he looks up at her and is startled by the fierceness in her eyes. All at once, he realizes this is not the conversation he thought it was. Something is off. There's an undercurrent here that he can't see.

He clears his throat loudly. "Well, regardless…. when it happened, I didn't know how to deal with it. I just shut down. It took six months for me to come out of my shell. And when I finally did, I wanted to call you, I swear to God I did, but…."

"But?" she asks, with genuine curiosity.

"But," he starts again, awkwardly. Wary, now, of invisible landmines. "I didn't want to do it by phone. It took me a while to gather the courage, but I finally did, I came to the precinct one day, to talk to you. I hung around outside, waiting for your shift to end. And you finally came out, but you were with some guy – a tall, skinny, dark-haired guy, good-looking. And I realized he was your new partner."

"Nick."

"Nick," he repeats, pushing the name around in his mind, testing it. "Anyway, you just seemed so…"

"So?"

"Happy. I knew you'd moved on."

"I didn't have a choice," she says softly.

"Of course."

"No, I don't mean emotionally. I mean, literally. Cragen paired me up with him. It was work with him, or lose my job. So I worked with him. I got along with him. And we do: we get along really well. I like him. We have a good rapport. I trust him. He's a good partner. But El, he's not _you_."

"Thank you for that. It means a lot that you would say that."

"Well it's true."

"Still."

She sighs. "El, look. You're a good man. I've always known that. Whatever your shortcomings, I knew at the core that you would never deliberately hurt me. I _felt_ hurt, yes, I don't deny it. But I understand your reasons. I understand that in the aftermath of what happened, you had to take care of yourself and your family. I understand… the instinct… t-t-o… " She pauses, trying so hard to fend off the powerful forces of visible emotion that threaten to undermine her stoic veneer, her pride. "…to go into a shell…"

She looks away, trying to compose herself.

He knows the last thing she wants is for him to redirect the conversation back to her ordeal, though in this moment he wants nothing more than to comfort her. "Are you saying you forgive me?"

Her eyes return to his. There is gratitude on her face, that he has chosen to re-steer things in such a transparently self-centered direction in order to let her save face. "On one condition," she quips, poker-face back in place. "That you promise you won't think less of me for doing it so soon. Because you seemed to imply there for a second that I ought to be ashamed of myself if I let you get off –"

He laughs. "I promise."

With the back of her hand, she swipes at her forehead and gasps theatrically. "Phew. Good. It's settled then. I forgive you. Done."

"Honest?"

"Honest. Pinky swear."

He flashes a smile, appreciating her playfulness, but inside, an enormous weight has been lifted.

He quickly grows serious. "I promise never to hurt you again."

But she rejects his somberness, wanting, instead, to keep up the banter, like it's a protective shield. "Good. Because I think I'm all maxed out on hurt."

He's at a loss for words, for how to interpret the discordance of words and tone.

But then he's saved by the familiar-looking waitress – Hope, ah yes, that's her name, how apropos, or ironic, he's not sure which – who bounces up to their table, order in hand.

"Toast for you, hun," Hope declares, obliviously cheerful, "And…. voila, for you, big guy, BLT, everything on it. Bon appetit, folks."

With the much-needed interlude in the conversation established and locked in, he turns his attention to his meal, which he eyes with animal lust. He hasn't eaten since morning, when he first read the paper. The smell of bacon is intoxicating. He digs in.

Mid-way through his first hedonistically delicious bite, his brain practically glowing with base pleasure, he happens to look up at her.

And what he sees nearly makes him choke on his food.

She is green.

"Are you okay?"

"It's just… just smells a little… burned." She swallows.

"What's the matter? You give up meat?"

"No."

He watches as she takes in measured breaths, like she's being coached through a contraction. Something is wrong.

His food all but forgotten, panic rushes up his throat. "Liv, what is it? Tell me."

"The smell… I just… I don't like… I'm gonna be sick!"

Before he can react, she's bolted out of her seat and made a beeline for the ladies' room.

Years of busting in to all manners of private places as part of the job have left him shameless as far as the women's restroom is concerned, and he brazenly pushes through the swivel door.

He's only seconds behind her, but she's already in a stall, retching.

"Liv?" he calls, more to announce himself. "Can I come in?"

In lieu of a response, she flushes the toilet and promptly emerges from the stall, white as a sheet.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

She floats to the sink, and he watches as she uses one hand to scoop water to splash on her face, her left arm more conspicuously useless than ever. It's a maddeningly manual process, but he spares her the indignity of offering his help.

"I'm sorry, El. Geez, way to ruin your meal."

"Forget about that."

She glances at him through the mirror. "Guess I'm off meat after all."

Twelve years in SVU hasn't been for naught. He knows a post-traumatic trigger when he sees one. He just wishes he knew what it was. What the hell did that bastard do to her?

He casually leans a hip against the second sink, watches her in profile. "Do you feel better?"

"A bit."

"Do you want to get out of here?"

"Yes, please."

"Do you want me to drive you to Brian's?"

At this, she hesitates. "I, uh, I guess so."

"I can take you anywhere you want to go."

"I wish… I just wish I could go home. To my own place."

He knows how she feels, though he's not sure she'd believe him. For him, the definition of home is _with _people. In this post-marriage era, his spartan Manhattan apartment feels so sterile, so lifeless. It is the antithesis of _home. _But what he dares not do is muse about this out loud, because that would bring into question her commitment to Brian. He vowed earlier not to sabotage things for her. If Brian isn't the one, she'll figure it out on her own. He will not – _can_not – play a role in that. Especially not while she's recovering. He would never stoop that low.

"You're welcome to come to my place. I don't live far."

"That's sweet of you, El. But his shift ends in a few hours. I'll be fine."

He smiles sadly, and holds the bathroom door open for her. "There's not a doubt in my mind."


	3. Chapter 3

The next night, his cell buzzes. He pauses the game – Mets are getting clobbered anyway – and answers without checking who's calling, a luxurious habit he's developed post-retirement. "Hello?"

"El?"

God, the voice is such a far cry from the spunky and assertive one he's used to. "Liv?"

Breathing. And then, "I'm sorry… It's okay. I'm sorry I called you so late."

"It's only ten-thirty."

She doesn't say anything, but he knows she's devising a way to recant the call gracefully. He won't let her.

"He's on a night shift?" he ventures intrepidly.

"What?"

"Brian. Let me guess. You're alone in the apartment."

Pause. "Yeah."

"I'm on my way."

A beat. "Thank you."

* * *

When he arrives at Brian's eight minutes later – he walked; go figure, the schmo only lives ten blocks away from his own shoebox bachelor pad – Elliot knocks, announces himself plainly. He hears her shuffle to the door, but several seconds pass before she opens it. Even though she recognizes his voice, she's checking the peephole. Twice.

She's white as a sheet when she finally lets him in.

"You all right?"

She nods. "I'm so sorry, El, I feel like an idiot."

"Don't be. You shouldn't be alone."

"Please don't say that."

He helps himself to a seat on Brian's couch, gestures for her to do the same. "Why?" he says. "Because you're a cop?"

"Yes."

"So you can't feel vulnerable?"

"No, I can't."

At least she's honest.

He knows he won't win this battle, so he lets it go.

"Anyway," she continues. "I'm not feeling vulnerable. I'm just upset."

"Wanna tell me about it?"

She glances around, not focusing on anything in particular. Her expression is spacey, if not a little frazzled. "I, uh, I got a call just now."

"From whom?"

"From Vanessa Mayer, the lawyer who represented Lewis."

Every nerve in his body tingles as furious adrenaline surges through him. "Don't tell me that bastard –"

"No, no, it's nothing like that. Anyway, she's not representing him anymore."

His brain isn't able to turn the physical reaction off quite so fast, and his body still rumbles with now-misplaced rage. It takes effort to return his voice to evenness. "Okay, so what did she say?"

"Her mother… she died."

"When?"

"A few hours ago."

He takes a moment to process this news, trying to understand why this matters. He knows he's missing something, but he wants to be supportive. "I'm sorry to hear that. May I ask, Liv, why did the lawyer tell you about this?"

"She thought I would want to know."

He tries to sound tactful; this is obviously significant in some way. "Okay… but why?"

"Well, she died of acute blood poisoning stemming from an infection."

He decides to come clean. "Liv, I'm sorry, I'm just not following what this has to do with you."

Olivia's distress has obviously impaired her judgment, because she still fails to appreciate he doesn't have enough information to connect the dots. "Well, it seems… um, it seems one of her wounds got infected."

Wounds? What's she talking about?

"Okay…" he offers coaxingly. _And?_

She shoots him the most devastating look he's ever seen. "From the burns."

And now it clicks. This is the woman Olivia was forced to watch being raped and tortured. _The other victim. _"I'm so sorry, Liv. But I hope you're not somehow blaming yourself for this."

It's precisely what she's doing, apparently, for her eyes suddenly widen with ferocious energy. "Are you kidding?" she exclaims, almost shrieking. "He burned her every time I looked away! He wanted me to watch, that's all I had to do! Her life was at stake, and all I had to do was keep my damn eyes opened!"

"And you didn't?"

It's not an accusation; he's just hoping to lead her to the logical conclusion: if she didn't, there was surely good reason.

She falters. "I…I tried."

"But you couldn't."

"I didn't try hard enough."

He inches closer to her on the couch, careful to give her buffer. "That cannot possibly be true."

"It is. I let her down. A victim is dead because of me."

He reaches out to her, cups her elbow. "Tell me, Liv. Why did you close your eyes? Did you decide to take a nap?"

This gets her attention. "Of course not," she snaps. It was clearly a provocative question, but he's disturbed nonetheless that she's taken it at face value. She crumples back into the soft leather of the couch. "I just… I was feeling so woozy."

"Woozy?"

"He'd, umm, he'd forced me to binge-drink vodka and swallow pills."

"What kind of pills?"

She shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. They were different colors. They made me sweat and hallucinate."

"And you had to drink vodka, too?"

"The first day, it was whiskey. Then he switched to vodka."

"How often did he force you to drink?"

"Every hour, on the hour. He would wake me up if I'd passed out, point at the clock, tell me it was time to take my medication. That's what he called it."

"How much would he force you to drink?"

"Whatever he could get down my throat. I would fight it, but he was patient. He didn't care how long it took, he wouldn't ease up till I'd downed at least four or five gulps. He would remind me that the longer I struggled now, the shorter the break I'd get until the next hour's 'feeding' came along."

"Did he give you anything else to eat or drink, besides the alcohol?"

"No."

"How long did this go on for?"

"The whole time."

"Four days."

"Yeah."

"And when did you visit the lawyer's mother?"

"I think we were on the third day."

For the sake of what he's trying to do for her, he manages to keep his expression even, though inside, he is shattering. "Okay. What else, Liv?"

"What do you mean?" She seems genuinely curious.

"Well, by the time you visited this woman, you'd endured more than two full days of round-the-clock forced drinking. What else had he done to you?"

"El, that's not –"

"Had he beaten you?"

"No."

"No?" He reaches out to her forehead, to the glaring cluster of stitches that mar her beautiful face. "Where'd those come from?"

"Well, he'd hit me in the head with his gun."

"How many times?"

She pauses. "Three."

"He'd knocked you out."

"Yeah."

"Okay, so you'd been beaten and force-fed pills and alcohol. What else?"

"Nothing else."

He waits a beat. "Liv," he starts softly. "By day three, how many burns did _you_ have, on _your_ body?"

"That has nothing to do with –"

"Olivia. How many?"

She can't meet his eyes. "I don't know."

"So let me get this straight: By the time you were taken to this woman's house, you had been drugged, and beaten, and tortured, for three days straight. Not to mention dehydrated and starved. And you were supposed to keep your eyes open. Does that sound reasonable to you?"

But the message won't get through; she is an impenetrable fortress of guilt and shame. "I was supposed to protect her."

"No, you absolutely were not. That was not your responsibility."

She ignores him, intent on her monologue. "She kept looking at me, and her eyes… oh God, El, they were pleading with me to make it stop. And I… I passed out! I let her down. I let an innocent woman die! How can I – how… how… how can I –"

She's practically hysterical.

"Liv. Olivia! Stop. STOP!"

Startled, she gapes at him.

"He would've done it anyway," he says softly. "He knew your weakness: that you care about other people more than you do yourself. And so he manipulated you into thinking you had control over the situation. He didn't do this to torture _her,_ Liv, he did it to torture _you._"

He grasps her by the shoulders, feeling the despondency reverberate through her. She is an empty shell. He shakes her gently, willing her to meet his eyes. "I need you to listen to me: No matter what you did, he was going to hurt that woman."

Under her breath, her head hung low, she whispers, "I don't know how I can live with myself."

_No no no no no, _he thinks desperately. He _cannot_ let her go down this path. Not on top of everything else.

"This was _not_ your fault. You were just as much his victim as she was."

"I just… I keep replaying it in my mind. I could feel my eyes closing, and my brain was yelling at me – don't do it! Don't do it! But I did it anyway, and as soon as I did, I heard this horrible, piercing scream. Maybe this was the burn that got infected? Maybe if she hadn't gotten that one burn, maybe –"

He has to put an end to this. She's headed for a breakdown. "C'mere," he interrupts quietly but sternly.

She abruptly halts what she's been saying, too drained, perhaps, to continue. "What?"

"Come with me."

He pulls her up from the couch, and his eyes skirt the room. At the end of the short hall is the bathroom, where he sees what he's looking for. He leads her to it, and parks in front of the door, on which hangs a full-length mirror. He holds her steady in front of it, and, his gaze trained on her reflection, he points to the bottom of her shirt. It is a baby-blue man's button-down, likely Brian's. "May I?"

Trancelike, she nods.

He grasps the hem of her shirt in his fingers, deliberately slowly, to give her a chance to tell him to stop. When she doesn't, he proceeds to lift the shirt, a few inches, revealing her belly-button.

Underneath are angry-red circles of blotchy, discolored flesh. One glance tells him there are at least a dozen marks. It is flesh that will never heal. "Look at what he did to _you_."

Tears silently stream down her face. "It's different."

"No, it's not."

"It's just skin," she argues lamely.

"Who was there to watch it happen to _you_? Who was there to help _you_?"

She weeps unreservedly, her shoulders trembling with shame, as her eyes stare at the terrible marks. She reaches down to her stomach, delicately touches the destroyed skin.

From beside her, he pulls her close. He feels the tremors that wrack her body in waves. "It must've hurt like hell," he whispers.

She lets out a strangled sob. "It-it did."

"The first time he burned you, what did you do?"

She answers through hiccups. "I-I-I… was shocked by how… fierce… the pain was. I'd never felt… anything…. like that. I almost passed out."

He clutches her carefully. "What did he do next?"

"He lit up another cigarette, and he burned me again. In a different spot."

"How long did he wait before he did it again?"

"A few seconds. He did it a bunch more times. I lost count." Through vision blotted by tears, she laughs mirthlessly. "I guess when they heal, I could count the scars."

He senses the flippancy is for his benefit, to put him at ease. "I'm not going anywhere, you know."

"What?"

"This story, these burns, won't scare me off. You can talk to me, tell me anything, show me anything, and it's not going to spook me into leaving you again. I want you to know that."

She seems to think about it. "I believe you."

"Liv, do you think that if you'd trained better, that you would have more easily withstood being deliberately and repeatedly burned by lit cigarettes?"

"That's not what I'm saying."

"Okay, then that you should've… I don't know…. been able to take it?"

"I should've."

"How? How could you have possibly prepared yourself for something like this? And even if you could have, why _would _you have? Being subjected to this kind of extreme abuse is not in the job description of a cop."

"I just felt so weak, so helpless."

"Yes, because that was his intent. That was why he did it. To make you feel that way."

"Well it worked."

"Yes, it did. But the point is, it would've worked on anyone."

"I tried to be stoic. I tried to take it."

He is certain nothing could be truer. "I know you did. But even the most hardened people can't take that kind of mistreatment."

She seems, finally, to digest his words. He's hopeful he's broken through.

Indeed, she starts to volunteer more. "He…he, um… "

"Tell me, it's okay."

"He sensed I was trying… to endure it. To dissociate, I guess. I'd started to. After a few hours, I'd started to…. to acclimate to… to the cigarettes."

"So how did he respond?"

"He… h-h-he…. um, he…"

"Tell me, honey, what did he do?"

"H-h-he fired up the stove."

He swallows a lump. "Go on…"

"A-a-and he… found a pan…" At this memory, she chuckles bitterly. "You know, I own, like, _one _frying pan that I use, like, once a year, and it was tucked away who-knows-where in the kitchen, and he managed to find it."

"So what did he do?"

"He put the pan on the stove..."

"Okay… and what did he cook?"

"My housekeys."

A chill runs up his spine. Even in the context of this brutal story, she has shocked him. "What?"

In lieu of a verbal response, she now moves her good hand to the top button of her collared shirt. With only one hand to work with, she fumbles briefly with the button, but manages to unfasten it. As she diligently gets to work on the second button, he's inclined to stop her, wondering if she's in her right mind, if she'll later regret this. But she's intent on her mission, and before he knows it, most of her cleavage is exposed. She then reaches to the now-loose flap of the shirt and pulls it down further, so that only her nipples remain covered. With so much physical damage, she is not wearing a bra.

And there it is: On the swell of her left breast, a perfect imprint of the key to her apartment. He recognizes it instantly, because he has a duplicate on his own chain.

He can't suppress a sharp gasp. "Oh my God."

Eyes averted, she pushes the cotton flap back in place, but without re-buttoning, it hangs listlessly, threatening to re-expose her at any time.

In this moment, he makes a decision. "Olivia, I want you to let me stay over tonight."

"El – "

"It's that, or I call Brian right now and tell him to come back. Your choice."

"He already missed days because of the kidnapping. He can't skip out on his shift."

"Then I'm staying."

As she hesitates, he realizes he has pushed her too far, that his reaction may have been too severe. Relaxing his face, the corner of his mouth rises in an impish grin. "What, you're not allowed friends over?"

"El, come on. It would be weird."

"Olivia, you were brutalized. Nobody should be alone after this kind of trauma. This shouldn't even be a question. So either you call him and tell him to come back, or I sleep out in the corridor, but I'm not leaving you here alone tonight."

"I'm a big girl."

"Who was tortured and assaulted for four days straight. You need support."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine."

She's silent.

"Do you want to come to my place?"

It's a Hail-Mary, but to his delight, she seems to take the idea seriously.

He counts to five in his head, waiting, praying.

Finally, she whispers, as if the walls might judge her, "Yes, please."

He exhales in sheer relief. "Roger that."


	4. Chapter 4

Brian's apartment is tucked away on a leafy, ultra-quiet section of West 108th Street. At this hour, Elliot knows they'll have to go to Amsterdam if they're to have any chance of getting a cab. Elliot's place is only ten blocks away and ordinarily it would be a no-brainer to walk it, but after better appreciating the torment Olivia's body has endured, he is loath to expose her to any more physical exertion than is absolutely critical.

As they tumble outside onto the darkened street, he takes her overnight bag from her. It's not particularly heavy, but with her handicapped arm, it's a burden. To his relief, she doesn't protest.

They commence their trek westward. He walks slowly, lost in thought, still haunted by the sight of her branded breast. As he approaches Amsterdam, he realizes she's lagged behind nearly a quarter-block. "You all right?" he calls over his shoulder.

"Yeah. Just… tired."

"Tired?"

Suddenly he notices that she's walking with a limp – almost shuffling rather than walking – and he wonders how he missed this earlier. He grits his teeth. Another injury to add to the list, apparently. He'd initially regarded the decision to forgo the half-mile walk as a precaution, of sorts, and he's disturbed to learn his judgment was all-too justified.

When she finally catches up, she's trying to conceal her shortness of breath.

"It's late," she explains, embarrassed.

It's a transparently lame excuse, and he wonders what her state of mind is that she thinks he'll buy it. She's young and she's a cop; she's been up a lot later than this. Thoroughly concerned, he takes her in.

"I'm fine," she says snappily, reading his mind.

He doesn't want to piss her off, but his heart thumps with worry. What he knows of her injuries is only what's she told him, and clearly she has left a lot out. To his knowledge, she spent less than a day in the hospital, and it now occurs to him to wonder if she didn't get herself released sooner than medically advised.

"Okay," he says warily. He tells himself they only have a few steps to go, after which she can rest for the remainder of the night.

They make it to the corner of Amsterdam, and they're in luck: they wait less than a minute before an empty cab screeches to a halt.

He pulls the back door open for her. "After you."

Olivia hesitates in front of it, as if contemplating how to maneuver herself inside. It dawns on him that this is exactly what she's doing. Without asking her permission, he gets behind her, and gently grasps her by the armpits. Wordlessly, he hoists her with his hands, taking her weight, and eases her into the backseat.

After he scurries in next to her and shuts the door, he turns to her. "Broken ribs are a bitch."

She had been staring at her lap in shame, but at this, she looks up. "Yeah." She pauses. "Thanks."

* * *

Predictably, the cab ride takes all of three minutes. As it comes to a stop in front of his building, Olivia musters to produce bills to pay the driver, but with only one hand to work with, by the time she's able to reach into her pocketbook, Elliot has handed the cabbie a five and told him to keep the change. He tries not to roll his eyes at the sheer absurdity of the energy she's spent just to thwart this microscopic act of chivalry, but he also knows this entire production is hard on her pride. And so instead of chiding her, he smiles kindly and winks. "You buy the coffee in the morning."

She nods gratefully, probably recognizing his counteroffer for the charade of tokenism that it is.

With the cabbie taken care of, he scrambles out of the car and rushes to the other side before she has a chance to attempt an exit. He opens her door and crouches down to her level. Without asking her first, he reaches forward and takes her again by the armpits. "It hurts less if you don't clench," he advises. "Lean forward on me as you step out. I've got you."

Seemingly cowed by her humiliating failure to pay the cabbie, she accepts his help without argument. Catching her expression of discomfiture, he makes a mental note going forward to concentrate his acts of aid on the places where she truly needs them, so as to curb her deepening sense of emasculation. Perhaps, he muses, he really should let her buy the coffee in the morning.

Lost in thought, he leads her inside, and, out of habit, heads towards the stairs. He lives on the second floor and the elevator is mind-numbingly slow.

She stops in her tracks. "El."

"Yeah?"

"Is it all right if we take the elevator?"

"Of course." She has no way of knowing it's only one flight up, but if he informs her now, he risks making her admit even one set of stairs is too much for her.

In the elevator, he snakes an arm around her waist, which she doesn't resist. On the contrary, she subtly leans into him, using him for support.

When they enter the apartment, he shows her his bedroom, tells her he'll sleep on the couch.

Predictably, she objects. "Let me take the couch," she implores him.

He sighs, but keeps all traces of exasperation from his face. This is not her fault; if the situation were reversed, he knows he would mount the same protest. On this point, though, he won't budge. "Olivia, I'm not trying to be chivalrous here. Your body needs to heal. You need a proper bed."

Thoroughly defeated, her eyes skirt towards the bathroom. "I'll, um, go change."

Although he knows the answer is yes, he resists the urge to ask if she needs help.

* * *

As they settle in, he wonders what – if anything – she plans to tell Brian about this sleepover. Surely Brian will finish his shift before she makes it back in the morning, and he'll wonder where she is. It's not Elliot's business that she's chosen not to tell Brian where she's spending the night, but Elliot also considers she might be too distraught to have properly thought through the timing and logistics: it is conceivable she has calculated that Brian simply won't find out, and has justified the white-lie-by-omission as an innocent act to spare her boyfriend any misguided hurt, and thus herself from the drama that might ensue. The last thing Elliot wants is to be the reason she has a fight with her boyfriend, however much such a development would further the fantasy lingering in the periphery of his mind of an eventual breakup. Because right now she needs more, not fewer, people to support her, and as pettily tempting as it is, he has to put her interests above his.

She waits patiently in the living room as he busies himself getting the bed ready for her. Now that he has a better picture of what was done to her, his horror is eclipsed only by worry for her wellbeing, physical and otherwise.

When he's done, he traipses back into the living room, where she's sitting stiffly on the couch, looking like she feels distressingly useless.

"What time does Brian's shift end?" he asks casually.

"Seven A.M."

"He won't wonder where you are in the morning when he gets back?"

As he suspected, she had not thought about this, and she sighs wearily, the dawning hitting her face. She is clearly not used to having to document her whereabouts to others. "I guess… I guess I should send him a text. I'll say I'm staying at Amanda's."

He wants to point out that Brian might happen to innocently contact Amanda, but he refrains, realizing the chances are low and that he might cause more stress than it's worth. They can cross that bridge when they come to it, he decides, and there is always the harmless truth to fall back on. He nods approvingly. "Come," he says, when she's done with the text. He offers her his hand. "Bed's ready."

She takes his hand without argument, and he hoists her to her feet.

She grimaces as she walks, obviously suppressing winces.

He glances to his right. She is in pain and trying to hide it.

"Hospital wouldn't give you painkillers because you still had too much alcohol and drugs in your system," he ventures. "They were concerned about interference, is that it?"

"Yeah."

He pauses. "You know, it's been two days."

"So?"

"So, your system should be clear by now."

"So?"

"So, you're in pain."

"El, I'm _fine._"

"Look, Liv, I have a little codeine left over from a root canal."

She glances at him. "I can't."

"Liv, I know it's not strictly above-board, but I think under the circumstances – "

"El, no."

"It's not that strong. Tomorrow we can get you a proper prescription, but just for tonight, let me give you –"

She stops in her tracks, turns to him. She is breathing laboriously. "Elliot. You don't understand. I can't swallow another pill."

He closes his mouth, nods. Kicks himself for only putting half the puzzle together.

* * *

At 4:32 a.m., he startles awake. Since his retirement, he's slept like a baby, but his Ikea couch is lumpy and doesn't quite accommodate his over-six-foot frame.

Shaking off the tail-end of a dream, he glances around at the darkened living room, confused. As his head starts to clear, he hears the sound of the shower.

He shuffles to the bathroom door and knocks softly. "Liv?"

There's no answer, but he doesn't panic: it's a noisy showerhead; he's been meaning to have it fixed. "Liv?" he calls again, more loudly.

He pretends to wonder innocently – and simultaneously hates it that he really _doesn't_ wonder – why she's taking a shower at this hour.

He taps at the door with an index finger, testing it, and it swings open several inches. He hesitates, wanting to respect her privacy.

But her wellbeing is more important, he decides, and right now it is incumbent upon him to confirm it.

When he pokes his head inside, he is horrified by the sight before him.

She is lying on the floor, crumpled on her side facing the door. She is soaking wet and completely nude.

But it's her skin, and not her nakedness, that has captured his attention. Blanketing her torso is a litany of fiery-red blisters, brand marks in the shapes of various keys, and what he could swear are cattle prod burn marks. This is in addition to the clusters of hard purple bruises, telltale evidence of the multiple beatings she took, and clearly left out of her earlier story. But it's the brand marks that really take his breath away. They begin at the tops of her breasts and checker their way downwards, until they disappear into her pubic region. There are far, far more of them than she'd led him to believe.

Involuntary emotion swells up in him, and he swallows, hard, to keep himself in control.

Because right at this moment, he doesn't have the luxury of dwelling on this.

Because, heartbreaking as the sight is, he doubts it is the reason she is lying on the floor, barely conscious.

He hastily grabs the bath towel off the rack and drops to his knees in front of her, covering her. He taps at her cheek with the backs of his fingers. "Liv? Stay with me, okay?"

Her breathing consists of short, staccato-like intakes, her lungs stabbing at the air like chop sticks trying to grasp a single grain of rice. He reaches out to feel her neck and winces by the pace of her pulse. It is racing, like a revved-up car motor stuck in park, wildly burning through energy.

She is moaning in pain.

"Liv? Where does it hurt?"

"My… chest…" she grinds out.

He feels his stomach drop to his feet. He stumbles out of the bathroom to grab his phone, realizing it's all the way in the living room where he's been sleeping. He pounds out 911 on the keypad as he rushes back into the bathroom. He collapses back onto his knees in front of her, reminding himself he can no longer identify himself as a detective, no longer order a bus with the sense of authority of a professional on the job. "I need an ambulance! 456 West 98th Street, Apartment 2-B. B as in bravo! I have a woman who –"

She's clutching at her chest. He watches her gasp again.

But the voice on the other end does not seem to share his sense of urgency. "Sir, can you tell me the nature of –"

"Please, she's on the floor, her pulse is racing, she says her chest hurts!"

"Sir, an ambulance has been dispatched. Please, can you tell me – "

"El," she gasps. She rocks to and fro on the mat. She starts to cough.

Then he notices that her lips having taken on a bluish tint. Alarmed, he takes hold of her good wrist, and, momentarily distracted by the angry imprints left by too-tight restraints, checks her nails. They are blue too.

She is not getting enough oxygen.

"Please, please hurry! She's turning blue!" he barks into the phone. "Liv – it's gonna be okay, the ambulance is on its way!"

"Sir, does she have a history of heart trouble or stroke?"

"What! No! She's only forty-five!" He tries to hurry through the explanation. The sooner the dispatcher has context, the sooner she can provide advice. "She's recovering from an assault. She has broken ribs, a concussion, and I don't know what else – "

"All right, sir. Stay calm. Is she still conscious?"

"Yes, but barely. Should I – should I sit her up? Will that help? She's on the floor here, and I –"

"Sir, just stand by. The ambulance will be there is less than two minutes. Try to stay calm."

She gasps again, taking in several shallow breaths in rapid succession. "Please… "

"Liv, don't try to talk, just stay awake, okay?"

Another hacking fit overtakes her. Instinctively, he pulls her head up into his lap, to give her leverage. "It's okay, it's okay, I've got you…" he soothes.

"I don't…" Gasp.

"Don't talk, honey."

"I don't…" Cough.

His eyes widen in horror: the phlegm she has coughed up is crimson-colored. "Liv, don't – "

But she is intent on her message. "I don't… want to die."

And then her head rolls back and she goes completely limp in his arms.


	5. Chapter 5

As the EMTs infiltrate the apartment, Olivia regains consciousness, but she is lethargic and disoriented, and when they try to touch her, she fights them. The effort, though, triggers a new coughing fit, and Elliot gently rolls her to her side, as more blood comes up. When she's done, the wary EMTs slap an oxygen mask over her face, and she is subdued. Elliot tries to glean information about her condition from the medics' body language, but they are all business as they lift her onto the gurney.

There is terror in her eyes the whole ride, as they buzz around her, lobbying orders at each other, their voices shrill and forceful. Elliot wishes he could comfort her, but he is pushed aside as the two paramedics hover over her, administering treatment. Since Olivia is in no state to vouch for him, Elliot bears their suspicious glares as they take in the sight of her massacred body. Then her blood pressure abruptly plummets, and they are too engrossed in helping her to deal with Elliot at all. By the time they reach the hospital, she is unconscious again.

In the ER, chaotic flutter ensues as a team of medical professionals swarms around her, examining her. Elliot nearly blows his stack explaining and re-explaining to aghast hospital staff that her assault is days old, that police do _not_ need to be called (once upon a time he would have emphatically – and, yes, arrogantly – declared that he _is _police), and that he absolutely did _not_ do this to her. Exasperated, he finally pulls out his iphone and googles her name, which instantly results in pages of links from which he can choose. It is a morbidly convenient fact that her abduction made national headlines. He clicks on the first link he sees – it's from a disreputable online rag that usually focuses on the tribulations of reality TV stars, but for these purposes it'll do fine – and shows them the gory story. Instantly, his credibility is restored. How surreal, he thinks, to be using a tabloid article where once he would have used a badge, to have to exploit the sensationalism of her story, where once "partner" would have sufficed.

But the staff's hostility is now replaced by sympathy, which, given the exhausting hoops he's just jumped through, he accepts docilely, though a part of him guiltily wishes it to be redirected at a different recipient, as though there is only so much of it to go around. Still, even with respectful treatment, he no longer can claim NYPD privileges and he is ultimately made to wait outside the trauma ward like everyone else, with no information, no sense of her prognosis.

For a full hour, he sits numbly in the waiting area, his elbows digging into his thighs, as he thumbs through his phone mindlessly, watching the clock, debating whether to call Brian, unsure what to do if seven o'clock rolls around and there's still no news. He is utterly grateful for one bit of foresight: amidst the pandemonium of the arrival of the paramedics, he managed to remember to grab Olivia's phone. So he will catch any texts she receives, and he also has Brian's number should he need to be contacted.

At 6:38 a.m., a doctor finally emerges to speak to him.

"Are you here for Olivia Benson?"

Elliot scrambles to his feet. He holds his hand out for the young man, who is tall and burly, but in a teddy-bear sort of way. "Yes! Yes, Elliot Stabler. Hi. Please, is she okay?"

"I'm Doctor Rubinstein. She suffered a pneumothorax – it's a collapsed lung. Air escapes from the lung and fills up the space outside, putting pressure on the lung and causing it to collapse. We see it most often in smokers, but in her case it was almost certainly caused by a fractured rib."

"Is she going to be okay?" he repeats nervously.

"She's going to be okay, but we had to insert a chest tube and she'll have to stay here for a few days while we monitor her. We're hoping to avoid surgery, but it's still a possibility. We'll know more in a few hours."

"Is she awake? Can I see her?"

Doctor Rubinstein now hesitates, looking him up and down, as if Elliot's worn jeans and wrinkled blue t-shirt will divulge information as to his true identity. "Mr. Stabler, are you her husband?"

But Elliot's ready for the question; after the earlier interrogation, this is a cakewalk. "I'm not. I was her partner for over a decade. We're still close friends. She was staying over at my place when this happened."

The doctor raises an eyebrow. "Partner?"

"We're detectives. Well, she is. I'm retired now."

"Aha. So she's not married?"

"She has a boyfriend. But he's working tonight."

"I see. Does she have any family we can contact?"

Elliot senses that Doctor Rubinstein still doesn't trust him, that he is uncomfortable discussing her case with anyone his patient might later claim had no business knowing. Idly, Elliot wonders if Cassidy's "boyfriend" status would have carried more weight than "partner."

"None whatsoever." For the sake of simplicity as well as to reflect the spirit of the truth, if not the literal truth, he takes a chance that Simon's status as a relative-in-DNA-only has not changed. He adds, as if to bolster the claim, "I'm her next of kin." In point of fact he has no idea if she's changed her paperwork since his departure, but he can always plead ignorance.

He has evidently said the magic words, for Doctor Rubinstein's body language visibly relaxes. If his fragile patient trusts this man enough to make him her next-of-kin, then he will too. "All right. Then I guess I can share this with you. My staff and I were quite concerned by the numerous wounds and marks all over her body. She was assaulted quite… viciously."

Elliot bows his head. "I know, it's… terrible. She was tortured."

The doctor grimaces. "It's our understanding this only happened two days ago."

"That's when it _ended_. It took place over the course of four days."

The doctor nods grimly. "I see. And you're aware of the… severity of what she endured?"

Elliot takes in a sharp breath, choosing his words carefully. "I'm aware of… what she told me. I know that it was brutal. She's still processing it herself, I think." He hesitates, tentatively catching the doctor's skeptical eye. "Is there… is there anything I should… know about?"

"Nothing life-threatening."

"Anything… _non_-life threatening?"

At this, the doctor shifts awkwardly on his feet. Guardedly, he says, "It's not my area of expertise, but I would think she needs counseling and support from loved ones."

Alarm bells go off in his head. This doctor is speaking in fairly plain code. "Please, I just want to help her," he blurts out desperately. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Does she have anyone who can be with her over the coming weeks?"

"Well, like I said, she's staying with her boyfriend, but he was working tonight. I persuaded her to come to my place because I didn't want her to be alone."

"Well that was certainly the right call. You saved her life."

Elliot is sure to show the proper gratitude for this scrap of approbation, but he also recalls how winded she was after trekking the block to Amsterdam, and guilt that such exertion may have triggered this crisis in the first place nullifies any satisfaction he might derive from this moment.

Doctor Rubinstein clears his throat. "Well, as for her lung, she'll need to be watched closely and avoid physical activity." He looks Elliot straight in the eye. "I strongly recommend she have someone with her for a few weeks while she recovers – physically and emotionally."

"Trust me, I get that now. She's very independent, but I think tonight probably scared the hell out of her."

"Yes," he agrees. "She obviously has a very strong will, because few people would have survived such a horrific assault." He pauses. "Which is why it would be terrible if the same strong will were the reason nobody was there to help her the next time she collapses."

* * *

At 7:02 a.m., he bites the bullet and makes the call, using his own phone. He wants to ease Brian into the topic of Olivia; using her phone would instantaneously alert him to the fact that Elliot is back in her life and cozy enough to have borrowed her phone. He doesn't want Olivia's faithfulness to germinate as a question, even if only as a momentary flicker across the periphery of Brian's mind for the span of the eight seconds it takes Elliot to explain the innocence of the situation. Once planted, such seeds tend to linger surreptitiously on the subconscious like a dormant cancer cell.

A deep and thoroughly grumpy voice answers. "Cassidy. Who's this?"

"Cassidy, it's Elliot Stabler."

To his surprise, the voice immediately cheers up. With all the undercurrent Elliot has manufactured in his head, he's forgotten that he and Cassidy parted on fairly good terms. "Stabler? Dude, what's it been, thirteen years?"

"Almost fourteen, actually."

"Fourteen. Wow." Pause. "You, uh, heard… I guess… about Olivia."

"Yeah. It's why I'm calling."

"Did she call you, man?"

He tells the truth. "No, I read about it and came to see her, two days ago."

"Gotcha. She didn't mention it."

There is no undertone of suspicion in Brian's voice, just a statement of fact. Elliot remembers, now, why Olivia liked him: he is straightforward and uncomplicated. His cockeyed optimism about people was, in fact, why he couldn't make it in SVU. Every case rocked his worldview, shook him to the core. But the very qualities that made him a lousy fit for the squad are, apparently, exactly what make him a good boyfriend. Olivia needs somebody light and easygoing and simple, somebody willing to take people at face value. Somebody not burdened by the stressful toll of relentless, exacting hyper-vigilance directed at every man who dares steal an admiring glance.

"Look, Cassidy, I know you just got off your shift, but she's in the hospital. It was a collapsed lung. She's gonna be fine, but you should come here."

There's a sharp intake of breath, and Brian is, commendably, not interested in the circumstances under which Elliot is present and also up to speed on his work schedule. "What hospital?" is all he asks.

"St Luke's Roosevelt."

"I'm on my way."

* * *

More than a dozen years later, Cassidy still looks nineteen. But his face also possesses a weather beaten-ness to it, which is incongruous with his otherwise youthful appearance. Of course, the poor guy has also just pulled an all-nighter, not to mention the odyssey of hell he surely traveled throughout the grueling hours of his girlfriend's disappearance.

As Cassidy traverses the ER waiting room, still in uniform and thoroughly disheveled-looking, Elliot jumps to his feet to greet Olivia's boyfriend.

_Boyfriend. _

It's a strange term to associate with his partner.

Involuntary jealousy courses through him as he contemplates the prominent role this man – once considered the joke of the unit – has taken in his beautiful partner's life. That she has chosen him as a companion has thrown Elliot for a loop since he first learned about it. He wonders if his own departure – the longest relationship she ever had with a man, he now guiltily recalls once callously throwing in her face – had anything to do with her decision (and surely it was a _decision_) to finally seek happiness out for herself. It's a bit of a narcissistic thought, he realizes, fueled and accentuated, possibly, by his own post-Kathy loneliness.

As he takes in his old, forgotten coworker's worried eyes, Elliot's attitude softens, and his hostility, normally so easy to conjure, evaporates. Who is he to regard with juvenile contempt this one person who has finally made her happy, when Olivia always treated Kathy with nothing but respect and kindness? And so he will treat Cassidy well; this is the least he owes his partner.

"Cassidy."

"My God, Stabler, you haven't changed." Brian smiles warmly, if not sadly, and thrusts out his hand for Elliot to shake.

"I could say the same about you," Elliot says with a friendliness that is only slightly forced.

As they pull back from the handshake, they regard each other warily, like two gunslingers contemplating a duel.

"How is she?" Brian asks hoarsely, his desperation etched in his voice, his eyes.

No pleasantries. No, "how's the wife and kids?" No sarcastic remarks about Elliot's convenient reappearance in her life.

That's how it should be, Elliot thinks approvingly. When it comes to Olivia's wellbeing, there should be no room for chitchat.

"She's stable, is my understanding. But they might have to do surgery."

Brian collapses onto a metal chair and his head slumps towards his lap, his thumbs digging into his forehead. "Goddamn fractured ribs."

It is once again to Brian's credit that he still hasn't questioned why Elliot is here. He has evidently filtered out the meaningless crap, and his sole focus is on her.

He sinks into the seat next to Brian's. "Yeah."

"The bastard beat the hell out of her."

Elliot looks up sharply. He'd figured as much, but it's startling to hear it laid out so starkly. This is also an aspect of the assault she had downplayed, if not denied altogether. He wants to mine Brian for more information, but this is not the time. He wonders how much of her ordeal Olivia has communicated to Brian, and if it's more or less than what she's confided in him. Then he chastises himself for the implicit competitiveness such a question begs.

"Have you seen her?" Brian asks.

So many possibilities to this question, but his mind immediately flits to the sight of her on his bathroom mat, helplessly exposed and so, so vulnerable. Her beautiful body, ravaged by days of senseless cruelty. But he knows this is not what Cassidy means. "Not yet."

Cassidy puts his forehead in his hands. "My God," he mutters, with such sadness that Elliot can't help but feel for him. "I still can't believe this happened to her. I keep thinking this is all some sick dream."

Poor guy has been up all night, Elliot thinks. "Dude, stay here, I'll get us some coffee."

Cassidy looks up gratefully. "Thanks, man."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the two former colleagues sit, huddled together in the same miserable corner of the ER waiting room, sipping cafeteria coffee.

"It kills me what this bastard did to her," Cassidy laments.

Elliot's first instinct is to say something sarcastic like, _no shit, Sherlock._ But he manages to keep his mouth shut.

"I feel so damn guilty, you know?"

"Why?" Elliot asks.

"Because I should've looked in on her."

"You couldn't have known."

"Yeah, well, she'd been telling me about this Lewis character, about how he kept jumping through legal loopholes. She was devastated when he got off. But we didn't have plans till the next day, and I didn't want to, you know, _presume._"

"You knew she had two days off?"

"I knew Cragen had sent her home early." Then his eyes narrow as he belatedly discerns the implicit accusation. He quickly adds, "But you know Liv, she likes her space. What was I gonna do, go over there and babysit her?"

_Yeah, that's exactly what you should've done._

Elliot feels emotion swirl, as the dawning hits of the catastrophe that might have been averted, if only Brian hadn't been so cowed.

Easy rage builds up like an old friend, but he's not the same person he used to be; he is able to suppress his more primal, testosterone-fueled instincts. This is amongst the things he's worked on in two years.

Still, the reality is agonizing. _What if. What if._

But then there is an even more biting rage, but it is directed at himself:

_What if you'd still been in her life? You would've checked in on her yourself._

"She looked a bit winded earlier, but I didn't say anything. She would've denied it anyway."

"I know," Elliot admits. If Cassidy asks how he knows, he will tell him the truth. Lies will only get Olivia in trouble, not him.

"I, uh, I don't know how to deal with this."

Elliot is shocked by Cassidy's candor. He'd expected interrogation about his presence here, and instead he's being confided in. "You just have to be there for her. Accept it, and listen to her."

"It's hard to listen if she won't talk to me."

"She's very proud," Elliot says.

"Yeah, proud. It's what I love about her." He pauses, realizing how this sounds. "Well, not the _only _thing. I mean, I love everything about her. Always have. And shit, man, it goes without saying, she's the hottest woman I've ever –"

"Cassidy, I know." Pause. "So… you love her?"

Brian nods sadly. "Before this happened, I was going to ask her to marry me."

Elliot looks up in shock. For some reason it had not occurred to him Olivia could _marry _Cassidy. A million emotions gush through him at once. Is Cassidy good enough for her? Is he handsome enough, smart enough, well-read, dynamic enough? She could have anybody she wants; can she find someone better? "That's great, man," he chokes out.

"But now, I just… I don't know what to do. She's pushing me away."

"She is living with you," Elliot points out.

Brian scoffs. "Ha! Talk about twisting her arm." He winces. "Sorry, bad joke. Put it this way: it was my apartment or a hotel room. I was the lesser evil."

"I doubt that," Elliot finds himself saying, kindly.

"You know, I'd been signing up for all these extra shifts, just to save up some money to buy a ring for her. She just thought it was a slew of bad luck. Short end of the staffing stick, right?" He laughs nervously. "And all I can think now is, she didn't need a goddamn ring. All she needed was for me _not _to be working that day!_"_

"She would never blame you for this."

"Yeah, well. _I _blame me."

Elliot lets a beat pass. Pensively, he asks, "Is she doing okay?" He already has enough information to form his own opinion, but he wants to hear a fresh perspective.

"Not really," Brian answers bluntly.

Elliot's taken aback. He can't help but picture the mortification and shame with which Olivia would greet such an assessment, as though a faceless review board has determined that her valiant, arduous recovery efforts still deserve an F.

"She puts up a good show, but man, what this guy did to her, the depravity, the sadism. I don't know… I don't know how anyone survives something like this."

"She does," Elliot says, somewhat defensively.

"Yeah she does," Brian agrees, proudly. "But you know, even she has her limits."

"Of course."

"Yesterday I was fixing the lock on the front door of the apartment. It was loose and it jiggled, and even though I knew it worked fine, I figured after what she'd been through, I'd make it extra-secure. Made sense, right? So I get out this toolbox I have in the closet and I start unscrewing the bolts. I'm doing my thing when I hear this breathing behind me. I pivot around on my knees and she's just standing there, staring at me, like I'm a ghost. And like a big idiot I get up and I step towards her and I've still got the power screwdriver in my hand and I try to reach out to her and her eyes widen in the worst panic I've ever seen, but she's totally frozen on the spot. She literally can't move. And so I try to calm her down, and she's just standing there, hyperventilating, pupils dilated, freaking out but not saying a word. And I realize, she's having a flashback."

"The power tool."

"Yeah. Lewis must've… He must've…." Cassidy hangs his head, trying to control the tremor in his chin.

Elliot touches his shoulder, awkwardly. "It's okay, man."

"She was all embarrassed and apologetic afterwards. But I was like, look, _nobody _can go through something like this and not be, you know, emotionally affected."

"Her biggest fear was always of being perceived as weak."

"Yeah, well." A second passes, and Brian says, "She'd kill me if she knew I told you about this."

"Yes, she would."

Brian nods, but goes on. "She cries in the bathroom. She turns the bathtub on and she thinks I don't hear her. I mean, for fuck's sake, I was a detective too."

Elliot finds himself in the unlikely position of consoling Brian. "It's gonna be okay, man. She's strong."

"He didn't rape her. That's the one thing I keep coming back to. It would've destroyed her. How do you recover from that?"

"People do," he says neutrally.

"I know that they _do. _I just don't know _how. _That one year in SVU, man, hearing those women's stories, I never got over it. I felt violated on their behalves. And that was just _hearing _about it. Man, what people do to other people…. Narcotics is so much more straightforward. People steal and hurt each other to get their hands on drugs and money. The violence is just a means to an end. But rape, _rape. _It's evil for the sake of evil." Brian shakes his head anew.

"I know."

"You know what I keep asking myself? Why _didn't _he rape her?"

"I don't know."

"I mean, you should've heard the rap sheet on this guy. He's a sick, violent animal. He rapes old ladies and college girls – doesn't care which. He doesn't have a type, he gets nothing out of it except to torture and humiliate them. I mean, he had Olivia for four days. How could he… _not _have?"

"I don't know."

Brian glances to his side. "Sorry, man, I know it's weird I'm dumping all this on you. I can blame it on lack of sleep. But I feel like you understand all this. Not just _this, _I mean, but _her_. You're like her only real friend in the world." He chortles nervously. "God_damn_, that didn't come out right! What I meant was, everybody loves her. And I mean, _everybody_. You should've seen that squadroom: you would've thought it was their own sister or daughter who was missing. But you know what's funny? She has no friends. Not a single one. It's weird, right? Most universally-loved person I know, and she has no friends."

Elliot has never thought of Olivia as _friendless, _but when he thinks about it, he's never once heard her mention any.

Brian continues. "But you know, the second I saw you here, it all clicked."

"What did?" Elliot asks, suddenly nervous.

"I was like, _of course_! Because she has you. _You're _her friend in the world. She only needs you."

Elliot is speechless, not fully prepared to conclude Brian is serious, but also smart enough not to argue.

And then, as if perfectly timed to rescue him from his case of tongue-tie, Doctor Rubinstein suddenly emerges from the trauma ward.

Both men pop out of their seats like synced-up crackerjacks. "How is she?" they cry in unison.

Doctor Rubinstein allows a small smile of amusement to slip across his face before he reassumes his sober demeanor. His eyes travel from one disheveled man to the other, as if the two are contestants vying for the title of Most Devoted and he is the judge. "We've determined we need to perform surgery to repair the lung. But she's stable, and we do think she'll recover fine."

"Oh thank God," Brian gasps, his legs giving out. He dissolves back into his seat, the tension leaving his body all at once.

"Can we see her?" Elliot asks.

"She's very weak," says the doctor. "We have to prep her for surgery, but I can allow one of you in there for five minutes right now."

Brian and Elliot look at each other.

Three full seconds tick by.

And then Elliot beckons Brian. "Go be with her."


	6. Chapter 6

After being allowed to spend less than ten minutes with Olivia, Brian emerges from where she's being kept before they take her to the OR. Elliot anxiously looks up from his perch.

"How is she?"

Brian hesitates. "She's weak."

"She's awake?"

"Yeah, but she wasn't very lucid."

"Oh."

Elliot can't discern if the puzzled look on Brian's face means he's troubled by something specific or just generally weary. He wants to ask, _Did she say something? _but this is certainly none of his business. He has to remember the pecking order. It's an odd feeling to be the _second _most important person in Olivia's life.

"Doc says the procedure'll take a bunch of hours," Brian tells him.

"You've been up all night," Elliot says. "I'll stay."

"You look like you've been up too."

"Nah, just since four-thirty."

Brian yawns. "Well, that's more than me."

"Dude, go home, get some rest. I'll call you the minute there's any news."

"Hey man, thanks." He pauses. "You're a good guy, Stabler. I don't think I ever said so when we worked together."

"I appreciate that, man."

Cassidy shrugs. "I was a dumbass back then. Couldn't see past my jealousy."

He's careful to conceal his shock. No sense in showing his cards. "What?"

"That you got to spend every waking hour with her. And I was stuck with Munch."

Cassidy saunters off, before Elliot has a chance to respond.

* * *

Elliot sits on a hard plastic chair, waiting for Olivia to come out of surgery.

Even though he's been assured this is not a dangerous operation, he is terrified. Doctor Rubinstein's words from earlier echo in his head, replaying in a loop. Only in his mind's grainy version, the underlying optimism that was the doctor's intent is missing.

_Few people would've survived such a horrific assault. _

Could this surgery, then, represent the proverbial other shoe dropping? Will tomorrow's headlines read, _SVU Detective Dies of Injuries Sustained During Assault? _How unremarkable, how unsensational, how _probable _such a headline would be. He pictures Cragen and Munch and the rest of the squad, as well as more peripheral staff members of the stationhouse coming together, shaking their heads, murmuring platitudes about how terrible and shocking this turn of events was, but belying such words would also be the implicit understanding that her initial survival, like that of a gunshot victim who miraculously makes it through the ambulance ride, ought to have all along been regarded as precarious and temporary, and certainly not the end of the story.

Exacerbating his disquietude is his boredom. He has nothing to read, nothing to focus his mind on. He tries to pass the time thinking about his children, about how well each of them is doing – Kathleen is thriving, finally, and Maureen is engaged to a bright young dental student – but his mind keeps pivoting back to Olivia. In twelve years of working with her, he's never had to sit here for her, never had to go through this with her. Never had to _wait. _

She's had to for him, many times. But his hospital stays were different.

Because this is not just a lung injury.

This is not just surgery.

It represents the abrupt end to any vestiges of her freedom, to what little dignity she managed to cobble together in the aftermath of her ordeal.

She's been mortified by her physical injuries, but at least she's been able to walk, to move, to function. She's had the option – however ill-advised – to refuse the help of others.

But now she's facing weeks of recuperation. Weeks of physical pain and weakness and helplessness. Weeks of _needing _other people to take care of her.

Weeks of a recovery process that was _already_ going to represent the most challenging and daunting battle of her life.

And he's pretty sure she's been raped.

* * *

About two hours into her surgery, Olivia's phone buzzes, and Elliot, who had dozed off, jumps out of his skin.

It's a text, from a 'Nick.' He searches his memory for this familiar name, and it comes to him: this is her new partner, who, he reminds himself glumly, is no longer quite so new.

_Liv, nothing urgent, just wanted to check in & see if you needed anything._

Elliot is instantly impressed by Nick. Olivia has undoubtedly told him, too, how _fine _she is, and yet he is bold enough to risk her wrath by asking again.

_Everybody loves her._

Brian's words from earlier abruptly come back to him. Of course he's right. She is loved. She is _be_loved. For a second, he muses about the difference in meaning between the two terms, and then decides it really doesn't matter: she is both.

He hesitates in front of her phone, contemplating a response. He doesn't want to impersonate her, but he also knows that he will open a can of worms if he explains the situation. The trouble is, if Nick is half the partner Elliot was, then he will panic if there is no reply at all.

And so he types the truth:

_This is Elliot Stabler, Olivia's old partner and friend. She's OK, but had a small setback and needed to come back to the hospital. _

He's about to send the message when it occurs to him that Nick knows about Cassidy, and that this will not look good for her. Even if Cassidy himself has blessed Elliot's presence here, and even if Nick is not one to judge, Elliot knows how easily and quickly rumors – however false – can be started, and the idea of his being responsible for one that can be so damaging to Olivia – especially while she's already dealing with so much – is unconscionable to him.

And so he appends, _Cassidy was here and just left._

There. Everything above-board. He has nothing to apologize for, and neither does Olivia. It was inevitable that her coworkers would find out she had surgery; it was not something she would've been able to keep from them.

Predictably, the phone takes about six seconds to ring. "Olivia's phone," Elliot answers, though it is obviously Nick.

"Stabler, this is Nick Amaro, Olivia's partner. I know we haven't met but under the circumstances I know you won't mind if I cut to the chase. Is she okay? What happened?"

Elliot is bowled over by the genuine concern – if not downright panic – in Nick's voice. "It was a collapsed lung. She's in surgery."

There's a long pause, accompanied by several exhalations. And then, "Oh, man."

"They said she'll be okay."

"Yeah, okay, I understand… I just…."

"What is it?"

Nick waits a beat. "It's just… man, she can't catch a break."

Elliot hangs up, sure Amaro was going to say something else.

* * *

Three hours later, Doctor Rubinstein emerges to talk to him. "Surgery was successful, she's in recovery."

Elliot bounces to his feet. "Thank God. When can I see her?"

"In a few minutes; they're just making her comfortable."

It's now or never, Elliot thinks. "Doctor, can I ask you a question?"

Rubinstein glances around, apparently trying to feign a look of overwhelmed busyness. But his eyes return to Elliot, so bedraggled and enervated, and he sighs. "Sure."

"When you examined her, did you see anything that would explain why she might be walking with a limp?"

Rubinstein hesitates. "That's not something I can discuss with you."

"Even as her next of kin?"

"Even as her next of kin." He shifts on his feet, undoubtedly noting the sincerity of Elliot's concern. He adds, "Like I mentioned earlier, the best thing you can do for her is be there and listen to her and support her."

"Look, I'm not sure I mentioned it earlier, but Olivia and I, we worked in Special Victims. We handled rape –"

"I'm familiar with Special Victims," Rubinstein interrupts, not unkindly.

"Right, of course. But I was going to say, I have a lot of experience… helping… sexual assault victims."

"If that's your way of asking me if she was sexually assaulted, nice try."

"Well, what sort of care – physical, I mean – will she need in the short term?"

"I'll be frank. She's going to be very weak and in a lot of pain. So, all sorts."

* * *

She is still unconscious when he enters the room, but the nurse reassures him the anesthesia should start to wear off in the next half-hour.

Her bed is elevated to a forty-five degree angle so that she's semi-reclined like a sunbather. Indeed; if not for the oxygen tubules in her nostrils and various other machines to which she is conspicuously hooked up, he would think she was merely taking a nap.

When he notices her start to stir, he eagerly drags his seat closer to her bed, watching her face. She is still so, so beautiful. He takes a nervous swig out of his water bottle, which he bought hours ago but forgot about till this moment.

Finally, she opens her eyes unsteadily, her gaze droopy and unfocused.

"Liv?"

She looks around dazedly.

"Liv?" he repeats. "I'm right here. You're okay."

Rather than acknowledge him, though, her eyes settle on his water bottle, which he's clutching in his sweaty palm like a security blanket.

"You want a sip?"

She gives a slight nod and opens her mouth. He uncaps the bottle and brings it towards her face. She tracks the trajectory of his wrist as it approaches her. "Your throat must be dry."

It happens too fast for him to react.

Just as the bottle is about to make contact with her lips, her eyes widen in abject terror and she clamps her mouth shut, shrinking away from the object like a toddler being fed carrots. Then she reaches out and bats the bottle out of his hand. It flies across the room, landing on the waxy floor, spilling as it rolls away and leaving in its wake a sizable puddle, before finally coming to a halt at the leg of an empty bed.

"Liv!" he exclaims, startled. "Hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay."

Eyes closed again, she whimpers softly.

"It's over, Liv, it's over. You're in the hospital. Open your eyes again, it's okay."

He waits. Twenty seconds tick by as she struggles to gather herself. Just as he's about to call the nurse – he's worried such agitation will affect her breathing – there's a palpable change. And then, slowly but surely, she reboots, this time, thankfully, to a fully conscious state. When she opens her eyes anew, full recognition dawns.

"You all right?" he asks mildly.

"God, El. I'm so sorry. I must've –"

"Don't worry about it," he interjects.

"Please don't –"

"It's forgotten." He smiles kindly.

"Thank you."

"How are you feeling?"

She groans. "Like I got hit by a bus."

He chuckles softly. "I'm so sorry, Liv."

"You didn't call anyone, did you?"

"Like who?"

"Brian?"

He furrows his brows, a little thrown. "Honey, Brian was here, earlier. He went in to see you right before the surgery."

She clearly doesn't remember. "Oh. Right. Of course." As if to distract him, she then asks, "You didn't call Cragen, did you?"

"Of course not. You're on leave. And besides, it's not my place to tell your boss anything. But your partner texted you. I didn't want to ignore the message, and I didn't want to lie."

"So he knows?"

"About this? Yes. But he's respecting that you want to be left alone."

"I didn't want anyone to know about this… episode."

"Episode," he repeats, disdainfully. "You make it sound like you had some kind of mental breakdown. You had a collapsed lung, Liv. This was completely medical."

"I know. But they all feel so guilty already. Nick, he was the one who got to me first. I'd already subdued Lewis, but… I was in bad shape. He blames himself, even though he didn't do anything wrong."

He makes a mental note. _Talk to Nick._ _Nick will have insight._

"Well, I understand how he feels," he says lightly, to fill the space.

She clucks her tongue. "Just… please. Don't say things like that. It makes _me _feel guilty."

"You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"Elliot, let me ask you something. Would you rather be the victim or feel responsible for someone _else's _victimhood?"

He answers swiftly and truthfully. "I would rather be the victim."

"Yeah, I figured you might say that. But what happens if the people you're closest to feel the same way?"

"I don't follow."

"_I _was the one who was… attacked. But the people around me are suffering too, because they're carrying around all this guilt. They think they let this happen to me. And that makes _me _feel guilty. They're suffering, because of _me_."

"Liv, I guarantee you, nobody's suffering as much as you are."

She sighs. "I know you know what I mean."

"I do."

"This is hard enough. So just let me have it my way please."

"You know I'll do anything you want."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"And… thank you… for bringing me here."

He seizes the opportunity to inject some levity into the conversation. "Yeah, well, I thought about leaving you on the floor to let you sleep it off, but then I thought, what the hay, I was up anyway –"

She attempts to swat him in the arm playfully, but the IV hookup limits her range, and she doesn't make contact. "Stop it."

"I'm sorry. You just – you don't need to thank me."

A minute passes in silence. He gazes at her, wondering what she's thinking, watching her chest rise and fall beneath the sheet. She is alive. She is awake and breathing and talking. He needs to be grateful for that. He will help her with her pain. He will help her recover. He will help her face her demons. Things will be okay.

"When I was lying there, I thought it was the end."

He involuntarily draws up that terrible image from last night. It's a Polaroid, etched in his brain forever. "You're a survivor, Liv." It's a trite statement by now, but never has he been more serious, and emotion blots his words.

"Yeah, but… first Alice Parker, then Vanessa Mayer's mother. They both died exactly two days after their rescue."

A chill runs through him. He hadn't connected the dots quite this way. Doctor Rubinstein's words come back to him like an omen: _You saved her life._

"But _you_ survived," he repeats with emphasis. He wonders whom he's trying to convince.

She reaches over and squeezes his wrist. "Thanks to you." She pauses. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I… that something was wrong? I tried to call out to you, but I was gasping too hard."

"I don't know. I just woke up, and I decided to check on you."

She nods. "Brian sleeps like a log."

His brain lights up with guilty glee, but he's careful not to react, unsure if the implicit criticism was intentional, or if she was merely blurting out a fact impulsively.

"Elliot, you, uh, I guess... uh…"

He waits, knowing what she's about to ask. But he doesn't push her.

She swallows. "You saw my body?"

The humane thing to do is to lie, but he finds, simply, that he can't. "Yes." He doesn't elaborate on just how much of it he saw; there's a chance her memory will remain fuzzy as to the exact state in which he found her.

"Oh God," she chokes, turning a little red.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," he offers quickly, realizing too late that sympathy oozes from his voice. He knows how proud she is, and he wishes she could understand he doesn't see her differently, and, based on his conversation with Brian, neither will he.

Clearly mortified, she turns her head away. "I didn't want anyone to see," she murmurs.

"Those marks don't change who you are."

"They're disgusting."

"They're skin."

"Come on, El. We all have to have a little vanity."

"You're a stunningly beautiful woman, Liv. A few scars won't change that."

She turns back to him and meets his eyes. She wears her vulnerability like a cloak. "I hope," she squeaks desperately.

A few moments pass in silence. He gives her time to process.

"He hasn't seen the burn marks yet, has he?" he ventures.

"No."

"Has he asked you?"

"He's trying to be respectful of my privacy. But I… can't undress in front of him."

"Are you afraid he'll see you as damaged?"

She sighs. "Let's face it, I _am_ damaged."

"No, your _skin _is damaged."

The muscles in the column of her neck flex, nearly imperceptibly, like she was just about to say something – to correct him – but restrained herself at the last second. "My skin is part of me."

"It's one part," he argues. "He loves you, Liv. Those scars won't matter to him."

Again, he catches the millisecond of hesitation. Nobody knows her better than he does; every gesture, every blink, every microtwitch. There's something more she hasn't told him.

"You say that, El, but come on. Men are visual. Those marks are hideous."

"You're wrong. What you went through getting them, _that's _what's so hideous. But you also survived. Because that's who you are: a survivor. Don't let those marks define you. Don't let this attack define you. That's the difference between a victim and a survivor. And that's what Brian loves about you."

She shows no reaction to his reiteration of Brian's feelings for her, and he wonders, with inappropriate hope, what this means.

"I know how this works," she says. "At some point I'll have to show them to him. And he's gonna make a big point of telling me they don't matter to him. And I'll never know if he's telling me the truth."

"You have to decide if you trust him. If you do, then it means you believe him when he says they don't matter."

She looks him straight in the eye. "Would you ever have admitted to Kathy that something on her body turned you off?"

It's not the same thing, he wants to say. Because he never loved Kathy the way he loves her. But Olivia would never believe him. Olivia has always believed Kathy was the love of his life, and Elliot never contradicted this, because it was in everyone's best interests – professionally – for her to believe this. "I don't know," he concedes.

She frowns. "I trust him to do what he _thinks _is best for me, and he might _think _that the right thing to do is to spare my feelings and lie to me."

"Well, what do you think?"

She takes a second. "I'd be upset if he lied to me." She pauses. "But if I were being honest, I don't think I could take it if he told me those scars turned him off."

There's nothing he can say out loud to make her feel better.

Because only one response springs to mind:

_I would take you in a heartbeat. _

But she's not in any state to hear this.


	7. Chapter 7

The day after Olivia is released from the hospital, Elliot walks to Brian's place with a giant bouquet of Peruvian lilies. He knows she wishes she could be in her own apartment, but after her surgery, this is not in the cards.

Brian answers the door. "Hey, man. Come on in." His eyes sweep over the flowers. "Nice choice. She'll love'em."

"Yeah," Elliot says dispassionately. He doesn't remark that _of course_ she'll love them; lilies are her favorite.

They shake hands; Elliot stiffly, Brian warmly. The gesture is still surreal to Elliot, who keeps waiting for some sign of irritation from Brian that this other man keeps popping into his girlfriend's life. But Brian is not only not hostile, he seems to welcome Elliot's presence.

"How's she doing?" Elliot asks.

Brian licks his lips. "Honestly? Not too well. She hates how much help she needs. Thinks she's this huge burden. Keeps talking about moving back into her apartment."

Elliot glances at him warningly. "You can't let her do that."

"Man, I know. But she's an adult, I can't tell her what to do."

"No, but you can tell her how you feel."

Brian pauses. "I have. But I don't think she believes me. Meantime, she's going crazy in the apartment twenty-four seven. I took a week off work to help her, and she keeps hinting it was unnecessary."

"Well, don't let her bully you."

"Ha! She can hardly move, she's in constant pain. Doesn't make for much of a bully."

The comment is meant as a joke, of course, but inwardly Elliot winces; the image Brian creates is heartbreaking. This is not the reason he wants to hear for why his partner lacks aggression.

He tests the waters. "Look, if you want a break, or, um…. I could stay here a bit, keep her company."

Brian laughs, and, to his surprise, seems to consider it. "Might be a good idea. She's ready to throw me off the fire escape. If it weren't for her bum arm, I'd be worried."

At _this _image, Elliot chuckles. "For what it's worth, I don't think it's you. She's spent her whole adult life being independent."

"Yeah, well. At least she's _used _to spending hours with you."

Generously, he says, "This is true. But not because I'm easy to be around. Because she was being paid to."

"Point taken. Well look, I need to fill a prescription for her anyway and run a couple errands. Maybe you wanna stick around?"

Elliot maintains his poker face. "Sure, man."

"Just do me one favor: make it clear you just happened to stop by."

"As opposed to?"

"That I asked you to come over to babysit."

x-x-x-x-x

He knocks softly on the bedroom door, not wanting to startle her. "Liv?"

The voice is raspy, tired. "El, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Come in."

She is pale and lethargic-looking, her face drooping listlessly against the pillow. She wears a white silk pajama top that conceals – barely – the cluster of burn marks at the top of her chest. She looks utterly dispirited, and his heart goes out to her. Two days ago, at least she could move around.

"El?"

Before she has a chance to say more, he shows her the bouquet.

For some reason, her eyes spontaneously flood with tears. "Thank you so much. They're so beautiful." She lifts her neck, starting to shift her position, as if to immediately get to work putting them in water.

He stops her, lays them on the nightstand. "We'll do that later."

She doesn't argue, and lets her head flop back onto the pillow. "Where's Brian?"

"He had to run an errand."

Her expression instantly darkens. "And you're here to babysit."

She's nothing if not predictable. "Liv, does it ever occur to you that the least you deserve is help and support from the people who love you? That it's a _right_, not a privilege? And that having someone around to help you – physically and emotionally – is something you _need, _not because you're a weak person, but simply because… you're a person?"

She lets out a single, pitiful sob, but recomposes herself quickly. "It does occur to me, and I'm grateful, I swear I am. It's just that he fusses. I feel like an infant. I mean, come on. I can be alone in the apartment for an hour."

"He cares about you. Everyone does. You should accept that." He pauses, has a thought. "Just a sec." With a mischievous grin, he pulls out his phone from his back pocket.

She watches him, curious.

He thumbs through the phone till he finds what he's looking for. "Here."

"What are you showing me?"

"My phone log. Check out my incoming and outgoing."

"Okay…."

"What do you see?"

"Um, you called Kathleen yesterday, and… El, I don't understand what I'm looking for here?"

He smirks impishly. "Some detective you are."

She throws a mock glare at him.

He points to the screen. "No calls to Brian. No calls _from _Brian." He presses several buttons. "Here – no texts either. See, he didn't ask me to come over. Honest, I just popped in randomly."

"Let me see your email."

He freezes, having not anticipated she'd go there.

Then she cracks up. "Okay, okay, I believe you."

Relieved, he laughs with her. "Thought you were about to subpoena Verizon."

She smiles weakly, but it quickly fades, the moment of levity apparently unsustainable, as the reality of her situation seems to set in once again.

"Brian says the physical pain has been bad," he starts.

Her chin starts to quiver. "This surgery… it's taken everything from me."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm… I'm helpless again."

"No you're not, honey."

"I feel like… like…. I'm back with Lewis."

His eyes widen in shock. "What?"

She seems to belatedly realize the implications of her statement. "Sorry, that didn't come out right. I don't mean to equate Brian with… with…"

He waves it off. "Forget it. Just tell me how you feel."

She nods. "The worst part about those four days was how dependent I was on him. He kept my wrists cuffed behind my back the whole time, and…." She pauses. "You know, we make perps sit that way for a few hours. It's uncomfortable, but they get through it fine. But we would never keep them that way for _days. _It would be inhuman."

"He crossed that line with you."

She sniffles. "You forget how many tasks you use your hands for. Everyday, mundane tasks that we all take for granted. I couldn't do any of those things for myself, because I couldn't use my hands."

"The bathroom," he says quietly.

She trains her gaze on the window. "Yeah."

"He wanted it that way. He wanted to humiliate you."

"It worked," she thrusts out bitterly. "He got more pleasure out of that than out of the other… things. I tried not to give him the satisfaction. But it worked. It _worked._" She starts to cry.

He waits several seconds as she reins it in. He hands her a tissue from the nightstand.

"You know," he starts, "It doesn't seem like it, but it's over now. It'll take a long time to heal, but all those things he did to you, they're in the _past_ now."

"I know."

"Sorry, I don't want to be trite."

"You're not. Everything you're saying is true. It's just hard to _live _it, you know?"

"I know."

"Like, I'm not supposed to get out of bed. Brian's taking that very seriously. He says I scared the hell out of him."

"I can understand that," he says mildly, truthfully.

She glares at him. "He got upset at me last night," she tells him.

"Why?"

"Because I got out of bed."

He rolls his eyes, just enough to show amusement, but not enough to be derisive. "Why did I bother asking?"

This earns him a small smile.

"Were you okay?" he asks.

"Yes and no. I started coughing and it got intense, and my chest was killing me and I couldn't make it back to the bed. When he found me, he gave me a little lecture about how I should've asked him to help me." She pauses, her eyes searching his for understanding, for an ally. "But I couldn't, El. It was too…" She stops.

"Too what?"

"Lewis made me… _ask_. It was the most… degrading experience of my life." Her voice hitches. "I won't go through that again. I know Brian means well, but I won't_…. ask._"

He considers how to respond to this. Truth be told, he probably would've done exactly as Brian did, but at the same time he is wholly empathetic: even after Picard, he was grateful for the moments when Kathy had to go out, even though it meant stumbling around blindly.

"Do you trust him?" he asks her, feeling somewhat hypocritical. But it's not the same thing, he tells himself. She just had major lung surgery.

"Do I trust him? Of course I do. But that's not the point."

"Then why is it so hard for you to let him help you?"

"Because he doesn't understand how… dehumanizing this was."

"I think he does understand."

"Well it doesn't change things."

He lets a beat pass. "So why did you get out of bed?"

"I just needed… to pee." Sensing she's turning red, she waves it off with her hand. She points across the room. "I mean, the bathroom's, like, what? Ten feet away? I didn't think it would be a big deal." She looks him in the eye, bitterly. "But turns out I can't walk on my own. I'm too weak."

"It's temporary."

"I know. But I'd rather hire someone than let him help me with… _that._"

"That's completely understandable."

She looks at him gratefully; she'd evidently thought he would side with Brian. "He doesn't see what the big deal is. I guess in previous relationships he had… um…. an open door policy."

"If it makes you feel better, Kathy and I didn't."

She smiles. "It does make me feel better, actually."

He has a sudden brainstorm, and points an index finger in the air. "One sec," he says. "Be right back." He scurries to his feet.

"Where are you going?"

"I've got an idea."

He marches to the living room, where he spots the computer chair he noticed earlier. He quickly checks it, and confirms it has what he's looking for: wheels. He rolls it into the bedroom, next to her bed.

Her eyes widen with excitement, and for the first time since his arrival, she doesn't look so dejected. "I didn't think of that," she says.

"Trial run?" he asks, with a twinkle.

"Hell, yeah."

She musters to sit up in bed, but is winded by pain.

"Wrap your arms around my neck. I'll pull you up."

"Okay," she says nervously, doing as she's told.

He bends over her and grasps her in a full bear hug, clutching her to his chest, careful not to squeeze too hard. He knows how much her ribs hurt. Then, he slowly hoists her up and pulls her to feet. Gently, he helps transfer her to the chair.

"It's easier to go backwards than forwards," he advises. "It's like a shopping cart. Use your feet to propel you."

She does as he suggests. Five seconds later she has effortlessly wheeled herself across the room and parked in front of the bathroom. As a bonus, the chair is narrow enough to slide right through the doorway. "You're a genius," she says, laughing.

Satisfied that she's capable of taking it from here, he winks at her. "I think I'll go get a glass of water."

She nods gratefully. "Thank you, El."

He leaves the bedroom and closes the door behind him. To kill time, he indeed helps himself to a glass of water in the kitchen. When he hears the telltale flush, he waits a full minute, and then knocks softly on the bedroom door. "Can I come back in?"

"Yeah!" she calls. She is already back in bed.

"Mission accomplished?" he asks.

"Mission accomplished," she replies, with a bright smile, but one which poorly masks how tired she is. Her eyes droop languidly.

He seats himself back down towards the foot of the bed, staring worriedly at her, understanding why Brian has been so adamant about taking the doctor's order seriously and literally. Is it possible even this little chair excursion was too much for her?

She shifts uncomfortably, grimacing.

"You all right?"

She hesitates. "Not really."

His heart thumps. "What can I do?"

"It just… hurts." She tries to come off irritated, like her pain is merely an annoying ailment like an itch, but there's a distinct tremor to her voice that she's unable to conceal.

"What hurts?"

"My chest. The pain…. There are moments it gets so bad… I don't know what to do."

He's shocked by her candor. "Your doctor mentioned you'd be in a lot of pain. Are you taking anything?"

"I don't want to. But Brian's insisting. He told me there's no harm in filling the prescription – I bet that's where he is right now. But I just…. Just the _thought_ of swallowing a pill… brings on a flashback."

"Is it the swallowing part, or how the pill will make you feel?"

She considers the question. "I think both."

"Okay, so how about this? We break it down for you. He buys the pills, and we take out the bottle. But we don't open it, you just look at it, and we put it by the bedside. Can you tolerate that?"

"I think so."

He busies himself thinking through the game plan. "Okay, so then, maybe after a few hours of seeing the bottle on the nightstand, you open –"

"Why are you so good to me?" she interrupts quietly, her eyes searching him.

"What?"

"You treat me… like… like I'm…. "

He waits.

_Like I love you._

"Like, um, like you… know… like…" She stumbles inarticulately, turner redder by the second.

Suddenly, a door slams outside and Olivia jumps. A second later, Brian calls from the living room, "Liv, I'm back!"

Reflexively, Olivia clamps her mouth shut.

But they catch each other's gaze, holding it, communicating silently.

And then the moment is gone.

As footsteps bear down on the bedroom door, Elliot adjusts his demeanor and musters to pull her into a chaste embrace. He pauses briefly to nuzzle his face in her silky hair. "I'll be back tomorrow," he tells her. "Text me anytime, day or night."

"Okay," she says.

When he finally pulls back, there are fresh tears in her eyes.

The footsteps have made it to the door. As the doorknob starts to turn, he grasps her gently by the biceps and leans in one more time, pressing his lips to her ear. "I love you," he whispers.

He scrambles to his feet just as Brian opens the door.

She swipes at her eyes.

Elliot retreats from the room. "I'll see you tomorrow," he repeats, his piercing gaze still trained on her, like a hypnotist.

x-x-x-x-x

He replays the last few seconds of his visit in his head as he rides the elevator to the lobby and leaves the apartment building. Analyzing, reanalyzing, how the scene unfolded, what it all means. As he stumbles outside, he is so lost in thought that he bumps – literally – into a man on the sidewalk.

"Whoa, man. I'm sorry!" Elliot exclaims. He eyes with surprise the bouquet of Peruvian lilies taking up real estate in the young man's arms.

The stranger squints at him for a second, before recognition clearly dawns. "You're Stabler," he says brightly. "Olivia's got a picture of you and her on her desk."

Elliot abruptly realizes who this is. "You must be Amaro. We spoke on the phone."

Amaro thrusts out his hand. "Nice to finally meet you," he says, with transparent wariness.

Elliot doesn't take it personally. Amaro is a detective and also Olivia's partner; suspicion comes with the territory. To ease the tension, he gestures towards the flowers and chuckles. "Great minds think alike. I just brought her lilies too."

Clearly mollified, Nick feigns worry. "Nicer than these?"

"About the same."

Nick smiles good-naturedly. "Phew." He glances around, suddenly nervous-looking, as if recalling the serious circumstances that have brought him here. "How's she doing?"

"She's doing all right, all things considered. But she's tired."

Nick nods with sympathy. "That kind of surgery'll wipe you out."

"Yeah."

"I feel terrible, she probably hates having to be taken care of."

Elliot doesn't say anything. All at once he wonders whether Amaro has feelings for her too, or whether his concern is strictly as a friend and colleague. And then he wonders whether his own actions thus far have been commensurate with his feelings. His eyes settle on Amaro's flowers. Should he have brought a bigger bouquet? Chocolates? Should he have stayed longer? Should he be letting Brian call the shots?

Amaro's eyes travel upwards, to an unspecified floor of the building. "Cassidy up there?" he asks. Elliot notes the conspiratorial tone.

"Yup."

Nick's face falls. "Oh."

Elliot reads the other man like a book. He grins. "You can't stand the guy."

Amaro bursts out laughing. "Seriously, man. What does she see in him?"

Elliot shrugs. "Beats the hell out of me."

Amaro's eyes jump from Elliot to his flowers, as if trying to make a decision.

Recognizing his chance to have a real conversation with the one person besides Cassidy who's spent any real time with her recently, he seizes the opportunity. "Wanna grab a drink?"

Amaro nods gratefully. "Sure. I guess I'll stop by afterwards. Give her a little break from all the hubbub."

Elliot points to the corner. "I live close by and there's a place right over there. It's pretty decent."

"Lead the way."

As they begin their trek towards the bar, Amaro turns to Elliot. "To be honest, man, I'm glad I'm running into you. I'm worried about her."

Elliot glances up sharply. "Yeah? In what respect?"

"I've actually been wanting to talk to you. I know how much you care about her."

"I do."

Amaro clears his throat. "So, uh, just for the record, I'm married. Well, separated, technically, but the point is, I'm hoping to reconcile with my wife, and I've got a lot going on with my kids."

"So what you're saying is your concern is strictly professional."

Nick nods. "I really like working with her. She's the best partner I've ever had. And I know how much she loves that squad."

Elliot is heartened. "I appreciate your saying that, man. Thanks for clarifying."

"So…"

"So, you were saying. You're worried."

"Yeah. I am."

"Look, Nick. I've known her for over a decade. I think this'll be a long recovery process, but you'll get your partner back. She's going to come back to work. SVU is her life."

Nick looks doubtful.

They reach the bar, but Elliot stops short of the entrance. He turns to Amaro. "Okay, out with it. What aren't you telling me?"

Nick takes in a sharp breath. "There's a certain… narrative… on the record. About how she was rescued."

"Go on."

"Well, it's not entirely… accurate."


	8. Chapter 8

Elliot watches Amaro circumspectly. The man clutches his Coke, his sleek palms cupping it carefully.

"You don't drink?" Elliot asks.

Amaro looks up. "I do, just trying to cut back."

Elliot takes a swig of his beer. "I should do the same." He pats his tummy for effect. "Metabolism's not what it used to be."

Amaro smiles. "Yeah, well. I'm not much of a drinker to begin with, so I figure, hey, if I don't miss it, why have it in the first place?"

Elliot narrows his eyes playfully. "Dude. Are you a vegetarian too?"

Amaro laughs heartily. "I personally keep my butcher in business."

"Roger that. Thought for a second you weren't a real cop. Can't have the guy watching Olivia's back –" He stops abruptly, the joke suddenly feeling wrong.

Amaro, to his credit, doesn't miss a beat. "Honest, my virtuousness begins and ends with beer abstention. Just never developed much of a taste for it."

"And I guess SVU is as close as you can get to a dry squad," Elliot muses. "Cragen never exactly took us out for drinks after a case. And Munch, Mister I-Owned-A-Bar-in-Baltimore, was always a total lightweight."

"Still is." Nick nods wistfully. "Sometimes Olivia and I go out after work, but only when a case ends well, which, let's face it, in this unit happens about twice a year." He pauses to reflect. "I guess now…" It's his turn to trail off.

"She'll get there," Elliot says encouragingly.

"Yeah."

The two men are silent, contemplating all over again the profoundness of what's happened. It's the little things, Elliot thinks, that will stay with her, be a constant reminder of how much Lewis changed her life. She was always able to take or leave alcohol – it was never a great pleasure for her – but if her constitution has been forevermore altered, the principle of it will always upset her.

After several seconds, Elliot finally works up the guts to broach the subject. "You, uh, you said there was more to the story. What did you mean?"

Nick takes a sip of his Coke, places the glass back down on the coaster with purpose. "All right. I'm gonna tell you stuff, because I sense I can trust you, because I know Olivia trusted you." He corrects himself. "_Trusts _you."

"She does."

"You worked together for… what? Eleven years?"

"Twelve."

"Twelve. Okay." He pauses. "Then I know you'll keep what I'm about to tell you confidential."

Elliot raises an eyebrow. "Is it in her best interests for me to?"

Nick acknowledges the validity of the question. "Well, this is information that… in the wrong hands, could hurt her."

He puts up his hands. "Say no more."

"I'm telling you this because I care about my partner, and because I don't think anyone else is going to look out for her the way… we are."

"I hear you," Elliot says, swallowing a lump.

Amaro clears his throat nervously. "So I assume you've got the general picture of what she went through."

"I do."

"You know that he had her for four full days, but only the last day was at the beachhouse on Long Island."

"I wasn't aware of the exact timeframe, but yes, I knew that."

Nick nods. "Well, we'd been searching for two days. We knew she was on Long Island, but we'd only narrowed it down to a three-mile stretch. Everyone was starting to panic – even Cragen. The guilt that no one had thought to check on her during those first two days when he had her in her own apartment… well, let's just say…. none of us is getting over that any time soon."

Nick lowers his eyes, but not before Elliot catches the shame that washes over his face. Elliot has stewed about this fact for days, but he sees, now, that whatever mistakes the squad made, it was not for lack of caring.

"We got the call middle of the afternoon," Nick continues. "Day four."

"Right. She'd managed to free herself, overpower him, and then call it in."

"Technically, that's true." He cocks his head for emphasis.

"Technically?"

"Put it this way, that's the Cliff's Notes version."

Elliot takes a breath. "Okay. Tell me exactly what happened, step by step."

At this request, Nick allows a flicker of amusement to cross his features, as if to say, _once a cop, always a cop. _But Elliot also notes, with admiration, that he refrains from cracking the obvious quip out loud; the man has good judgment. "She called 911, from the landline of the house where she was. The dispatcher patched her through to us."

"What did she sound like on the phone?"

"Honestly? We didn't recognize her at first."

"Who answered?"

"Cragen did. I happened to be standing next to him; he put her on speaker."

"What did she say?"

"It wasn't what she said. It was how she sounded. Her voice was quieter than usual, and she was slurring her words. She had trouble describing where she was."

"Maybe she didn't know where she was."

"I don't mean the geographic location. We wouldn't have expected her to know that anyway. What I mean is, she couldn't tell us _anything. _Basic things, like the house was on the ocean. Or that it was a bungalow and white-colored. We asked her to go outside and tell us the address, but she couldn't."

"She couldn't walk?"

"We didn't know, but we didn't think that was it. It was more like she didn't understand the question. We asked her how badly she was hurt, and she couldn't tell us that either. We only found her because we traced the call."

"It sounds like she was in shock."

"She was. But it was more than that. The dispatcher almost didn't put her through; thought it was a crank call. And so did Cragen for the first few seconds. He almost hung up on her."

"_Cragen _couldn't recognize her voice? My God."

"It wasn't so much the voice. It was the tenor, the rhythm. It just didn't sound like her at all."

"Not to sound like a broken record, but shock can –"

"Stabler, I'm telling you, it was more than shock. We were able to piece together that she'd broken free and that Lewis wasn't threatening her anymore, but that was about as much useful information as she was able to give us."

Sharp jolts of electricity rush through him, and he cups his beer mug securely, as if to ground himself from the shocks. "So what happened when you got there?"

"Well, I went in first. I kept the cavalry back, wanting to see what shape she was in before half the department saw her. We were under no illusions this guy hadn't done some pretty bad stuff to her."

"And what shape was she in?"

Nick hesitates, his eyes flitting to Elliot, as if deciding whether Elliot can handle it. "She…. was huddled on the floor. She was shaking. Her pants were ripped. She'd been beaten."

"Where was Lewis?"

"That was the thing. He was on the floor about two feet away."

"Only two? Hadn't she handcuffed him?"

"Yes."

"So why did she get near him again?"

"I asked myself the same question." His voice is gravelly.

"Did you ask _her_ the question?"

"No."

Anger swells in his throat; this partner of hers isn't up to snuff after all. "Why not?"

But Amaro clearly isn't fazed by Elliot's spontaneous hostility. "Because it was fairly obvious she wasn't in any shape to answer it."

Full comprehension sweeps over him. Amaro did not screw up. Amaro is competent. It is Olivia who was not. "I don't think I like where this is going."

"It gets worse."

He swallows a lump. "Go on."

"At the hospital, her blood alcohol content clocked in at point-one-six," Nick tells him.

He winces. "And that would've been a few hours later."

"Exactly. So you can imagine how intoxicated she would've been when all this went down."

Elliot wants to make sure Amaro realizes the truth. "She'd been force-fed hard liquor round the clock for four days straight."

But Nick sees exactly where Elliot is going and puts up a palm to stop him. "Trust me, _nobody _thinks she drank it voluntarily, if that's what you're worried about. We knew this guy's MO backwards and forwards. He'd probably held her down, forced it down her throat till she gagged."

He grimaces at the terrible image. "I'm sorry, go on."

"Well, the alcohol wasn't the only thing. Her CT showed a concussion, courtesy of at least three separate blows to the head. She was severely dehydrated and hadn't appeared to have eaten solid food the whole time she was with him." He pauses. "And then there was her tox screen."

"Rohypnol?" he guesses, feeling nauseous.

"No. Traces of LSD. And… meth."

"Oh Jesus," he moans. "He could've killed her."

Nick nods. "The combination would've been toxic to her system. Every doctor and nurse in that hospital said it was a miracle she was still alive." He waits a beat. "Which begs the question…"

"How'd she get the better of him?" Elliot finishes for him.

Nick makes a pistol out of his thumb and forefinger, pulls the trigger. "Bingo. And the answer is, we just don't know."

"What does Cragen think?"

"I think he was so happy to get her back alive, he hasn't thought it through."

"But you have."

Nick shrugs. "That's what I do."

"What's your theory?"

"I don't really have one. Not a good one, anyway. I've gone it over in my mind a dozen times. Somehow, obviously, she managed to do it; that's not in question. So he was either really careless, let down his guard, or she had some sort of temporary burst… of adrenaline, of clear-headedness, of _something_. Meth is a stimulant, so it's conceivable, I guess. But it's admittedly…. a stretch."

"Well, what was she like when you found her?"

"She was… exactly how you might imagine she would be. She wasn't lucid at all."

_This is agony, _he thinks. "She was hallucinating?"

"More like…. catatonic. She was crouched in a corner near him, shaking, sweating. She was feverish. There was vomit all over the place. Frankly, the state she was in when I got to her was _exactly_ consistent with having all that poison running through her veins, in combo with a traumatic brain injury."

"Maybe that's why she got close to him again. Maybe she was disoriented."

"I would believe it." Amaro takes shuddery a breath, obviously replaying the terrible scene in his head. He looks at Elliot, thinking out loud. "So after she breaks free, everything hits her at once. It might not have been all physical either. She might have had a psychological break, too. She'd been tortured, beaten. She'd been humiliated for days. She was hungry. Who knows what that did to her state of mind? So maybe… she stumbled over to where she'd cuffed him, maybe she wanted to check him – or hurt him – but her judgment was impaired, and she got confused, changed her mind, or… maybe all of the above."

As much as he dreads asking the question, the picture her partner paints is so incongruous with the Olivia he knows that this conversation will be meaningless unless he addresses it head-on. "Nick, there's something I've wanted to ask you. Do you think he assaulted her…. sexually?"

To his dismay, Nick is clearly unsurprised by the question. "I think… there's an aspect of this she hasn't told us about. Either because she's too ashamed, or because she doesn't remember."

"That's what I think too," he says grimly.

Nick nods. "You and I should compare notes."

"Well, walk me through what happened after you found her."

"I helped her up, I talked to her. She took, like, three full seconds to recognize me. Her eyes were glazed and red. She'd been crying. She was cradling her left wrist, which was obviously fractured. She was unsteady on her feet, but she could walk."

His ears perk up. "Unsteady? Like, how?"

"Shaky."

"Limping?"

Amaro thinks about it. "It's possible. But honestly, it was all I could do to help her across the room. I wasn't paying too much attention to her gait."

"Got it," Elliot says quietly.

"Well, so, it was obvious she needed medical attention, but half the department was outside, not to mention reporters, and I wanted to look her over myself before I brought her out there."

"That was the right call," Elliot says.

Nick nods. "I noticed the mattress, the broken bed frame. There was blood on the mattress, in different spots. I knew that's where he'd kept her, so I couldn't make her lie down on it, though, to be honest with you, I'm not sure she would've known the difference. Anyway, I found a chair and sat her down. She was totally compliant. I gave her some water to drink, and I cleaned her up. I kept talking to her."

"Was she responsive?"

"Semi. She was mumbling a lot."

"Anything decipherable?"

"Sort of. She was mentioning a 'he;' something to the effect of how 'he' did it, or would've done it, or some such thing… but I didn't get the sense that she was talking about Lewis."

"Any clue who she meant?"

"None. But like I said, my mission was to just get her out of that goddamn house and into the ambulance."

"Right."

"I waited till I thought she could pass for lucid. When I finally brought her outside, she looked okay; maybe a little shell-shocked, but nobody would've guessed she was a total zombie. But take my word for it, Stabler: she didn't know what the hell was going on. I held her by the waist, I made sure she walked straight, and I prodded her to keep her eyes open. About fifty pairs of eyes were trained on her – it felt like a walk of shame – and I knew she'd be mortified, later, if she found out others knew the state she'd been in. Fin had gone in afterwards to deal with Lewis and he happened to come out while we were still standing on the porch. He and I exchanged looks – I know he saw how bad it was – but he's a discrete guy and he was just as intent on preserving her dignity. Anyway, I managed to walk her to the ambulance without anyone else realizing just how bad her condition really was."

An unexpected weight lifts from his shoulders. "I'm glad you did that," he blurts out.

"Yeah, well. It was the least she deserved."

Elliot nods, swallowing back tears.

"She said something to Fin, though. While we were still on the porch. Something that didn't make sense."

"She recognized him?"

"Unclear."

"What did she say?"

"Well, like I said, Fin came up to us, and told her Lewis was still alive. She was spaced out, but she heard him. She looked at Fin blankly and said, 'I don't see how.'"

"Why was that strange?"

"Well, the statement implied she'd thought she'd done some sort of lethal damage to him."

"But she hadn't?"

Nick shrugs. "None that I could see. He was unconscious, but otherwise it didn't look like she'd hurt him."

"Then why did Fin make it a point to tell you Lewis was alive, like he thought you and she might be surprised?"

"He didn't. _He _was the one who was surprised. He was essentially asking her, why _didn't _you beat the crap out of the bastard? Why _didn't _you kill him? But she was too confused to realize that. He replied to her, 'you did what you had to do,' but all he meant was, you got yourself free, you got yourself out of this, let's move on.'"

"It sounds like she _thinks _she did hurt him."

"It's consistent with her statement. The way she tells it, she beat him up. She says he came after her again, and that she beat him back."

"But she didn't?"

"Well, he had a handful of bruises, consistent with the original blows she would've delivered to subdue him after she broke free. But a more sustained beating? He was fine. Frankly, his unconsciousness had more to do with his blood alcohol content than any injuries she caused him. The detective even asked her why she didn't shoot him, if he supposedly broke free and came after her again, and she said she'd made a judgment call."

"What did she mean by that?"

"We don't really know."

"The detective taking her statement didn't ask her?"

Nick takes a breath. "You have to understand: there's zero appetite to question her story. She was viciously tortured by this guy for four days and still managed to overpower him. This is a guy who'd traumatized countless people, slipped through every legal loophole there was, then brazenly attacked one of the most beloved detectives in the city _because_ he'd eluded capture before. And then she not only survives but hands him to them on a silver platter, and she does everything by the book to boot. No revenge killing to have to spin as a justified homicide, no excessive force to construe as self-defense. She was _already _the definition of a sympathetic victim, and on top of it she had the perfect chance to exact revenge on him – and probably get away with it – and she restrained herself! She's a hero. You should see the greeting cards piling up on her desk from victims she's helped over the years, who read about it in the paper. So you can see how nobody gains anything by poking holes in her version of the event. No one wants to be the one to suggest she lied."

"Unless the reason she lied is because something else happened to her that she doesn't want us to know about."

"Well that's exactly why I'm worried. The department cares about its public image, which had taken a battering over this guy's release, and her story instantly restored it."

"Does your gut say she changed the story on purpose?" Elliot asks.

"Look, Stabler, let me be straight with you. I get a lot of flak in the squad because I play devil's advocate; with the suspects everyone's sure are guilty, and even with the victims sometimes. I question them, I dig. I'm the resident skeptic. But with Olivia…. I just want you to know, I'm not out to embarrass my own partner, or discredit her, or call her a liar. There's not a shadow of a doubt this guy did unspeakable things to her, that he brutalized and tortured and humiliated her. I'm just saying that Cragen … _wants _to believe what she told us is…. everything."

"And you're positive it's not."

Amaro takes a breath. His eyes are pools of piercing black. "I'm positive."

Elliot nods. "Then you and I, we get to the bottom of it. Quietly."

"Thanks, man." He pauses. "You know, you're actually a good guy."

Elliot laughs. "You sound surprised."

Amaro smiles. "I think I better exercise my right against self-incrimination."

"Fair enough." He grows serious. "I think the first thing to sort out is whether she really believes she hurt Lewis, or whether she's covering something up."

"I think it's both."

"Explain."

"I think she _thinks_ she hurt him – unjustifiably. I think she probably thought about doing it. Maybe he even taunted her. But at some point, she either started hallucinating from all the crap in her system, or she had some kind of breakdown."

"Do you think the breakdown – if that's what happened – was possibly triggered by a rape?"

"I don't know if it was specifically triggered by that, but I do think she was raped."

"What did the rape kit show?"

"We don't have the full results, because our squad isn't handling it. But to my knowledge, it showed she wasn't raped."

It's the first bit of good news he's heard in days. "Well rapes kits don't lie."

"They do when the victim terminates the exam prematurely."

He blinks in shock. Is it possible his partner would've done such a thing? Could she have been so traumatized, so far gone, so demoralized, as to have made such a decision? Why was nobody there to intervene, to talk to her? "Were you with her when she had it done?" he asks.

Nick clearly senses the hint of an accusation. "I was just outside in the hall. She didn't want me in there and I wasn't going to push her."

"How long did it take?" He calms slightly; in his gut, he knows Nick did his best by her.

Nick grits his teeth. "Not as long as it should have."

"You think she cut it short?"

"It's exactly what I think."

He mulls this over, then says hopefully, "Maybe they have different protocol up there – where were you, Nassau County?"

Amaro's face is full of doubt. "It's possible. Look, Stabler." His eyes are dark, penetrating. But also truthful, and full of compassion for the person they have in common. "She didn't want to have it done at all. I talked her into it. But I couldn't force her to complete it. I did what I could."

"I know," he says quietly. "I guess I just never expected she would refuse it."

Nick shakes his head sadly. "I hear you. But I could see…. she was devastated. She was broken. All the rules she had in her head about getting justice, about doing the right thing…. they were out the window. She couldn't deal with it. She was in pain and the priority was getting her medical help. I was going to pursue it, but I realized it's all well and good to talk strangers into it, but when it's your own partner, you have to put her ahead of the case."

"You don't have to defend yourself. I would've done the same thing."

"Okay." He takes in a sharp breath, opens his mouth again, but hesitates.

"What is it?"

"Well, there's one more thing." He pauses. "She told us he took her gun and badge from her right at the beginning, when they were still in her apartment. He had his own gun that he used to threaten her with, but he kept hers in his pants as a spare the whole time."

"Okay…"

"By the time she gave her statement the next day, she was completely lucid. She described the whole four days. She was very detailed, very articulate. She told the story using words like, 'the suspect' instead of 'he' or 'Lewis.' She didn't editorialize, didn't stray from the facts."

"Sounds like she was trying to put up a stoic façade."

"She was. But her memory turned out to be spot on. As far as we could tell, the first ninety-five-odd hours were spent exactly as she described them, verbatim. Her badge was found in his shirt pocket, right where she said it would be."

"Okay…"

"Well, she gave us all these details. Where things were, what he did with them. Which objects he had, when. What he used to burn her with, how many seconds he pressed various objects down on her skin, even which hand he used. How long he waited before he started a new round of… burning. What he did with the discarded cigarette butts. Some of them were absolutely gruesome details, but she was completely detached. It was like she was testifying in court about another case, and she'd been prepped really well."

"That sounds like her. Always professional."

"She doesn't understand that sometimes it's okay to be a little human," Nick says quietly, his eyes trained on his Coke, his voice suddenly layered with raw emotion.

"She takes pride in being strong."

Nick looks up. "Stabler, I know. I'm not trying to judge or to criticize. I know you love her. So please believe me, my only motive is to help her. I was only giving you this background for context."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she gave us this cogent, detailed, story. But then….she couldn't tell us what happened to her gun."

"Didn't she take it back from him once she'd subdued him?"

"That's the thing: she says she doesn't remember."

"With the state she was in, that could very well be."

"It's possible," Nick says skeptically. "But it's also possible that's what she wants us to think."

"Are you suggesting she faked this catatonic state she was in when you got there in order to cover something up?"

Nick shakes his head vociferously. "Absolutely not. Nobody could fake that."

"So then what are you getting at?"

"I'm not really sure, to be honest. All I know is, her story checked out, detail for detail, right up to the point where she was asked what happened to her gun."

"So what _did _happen to her gun?"

"That's just it. We don't know. It's missing."


End file.
